Altered Destinies
by Mike313
Summary: A different decision made in a battle and a simple act of curiosity cause Misato to be changed into a teenager, altering both her destiny and that of Shinji Ikari. Shinji/Misato.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

Chapter One: **Divergence of Destiny/A Mother's Approval**

Evangelion Unit One flew through the air over Tokyo-3.

Which, considering the sheer size of the purple war machine, was extremely impressive. Unfortunately, NERV had neither designed Unit One to fly, nor had they ever desired that it should do so. So, while the flight of Unit One was remarkable, it was a testament to the strength of the Fourth Angel, which had flung it, not anything NERV or the EVA's pilot had accomplished.

Of course, gravity being what it was, the flight of Unit One soon came to an end, and the purple behemoth crashed onto a small mountain, numerous trees being reduced to pulp under its enormous weight.

Inside the entry plug, the pilot of Unit One groaned, part of him dimly wondering if he was dead yet, even as he forced himself back to something resembling full consciousness. Shinji sat up…and his eyes widened when he took a look at his display. Two boys he had met just that day were cowering in the gap between two of Unit One's fingers.

Shinji felt his stomach plunge into feet. He didn't _like_ either of the two guys, especially the one who had hit him earlier, but that certainly didn't mean he wanted them dead! The realization that his inept piloting had nearly killed two people left him feeling cold and sick to his stomach.

A shadow suddenly fell over Unit One, and Shinji looked upwards again to see the massive form of the Fourth Angel hovering over him, its energy whips writhing about like angered snakes. The glowing pink tentacles lashed out, and Shinji reflexively brought Unit One's hands up to meet them.

The Third Child held back a grunt as pain exploded in his own hands, thanks to the neural link he shared with the EVA. He dearly wished he could throw the thing off of his EVA and fight it, anything to stop the pain, but he knew he'd almost certainly crush the other two boys if he did that.

Shinji had no idea how he could hope to win and thus survive this if he didn't get up and fight. All he knew was that murdering human beings simply wasn't an option, so he'd have to endure this for as long as necessary.

"Shinji-kun!" Misato's voice came over his radio. "Let the two of them into the cockpit!"

"Huh?" Shinji gasped, shocked that she would allow such a thing.

What followed was some discussion between Misato and who he thought was Dr. Akagi. Shinji couldn't really tell; their voices were barely picked up by his radio, but it sounded like they were arguing. He didn't need to wonder about what.

"Hold EVA on the current commands and eject the entry plug!" Shinji heard Misato order after a few seconds. "Hurry!"

He nodded, and gave EVA the appropriate order before grabbing hold of a nearby lever and pulling it. Immediately, part of the armor on EVA's upper back opened and the entry plug emerged, sliding out almost three quarters of the way.

"You two! Get inside! Quickly!" Misato ordered over Unit One's external speakers while Shinji opened the entry plug's hatch and threw out a rope ladder.

Toji and Kensuke didn't need to be told twice, and both quickly scurried up the ladder to the relative safety of the entry plug. The two boys jumped in without taking a good look at its interior, and were both shocked to find it filled with liquid.

"What the hell? Water?!" Toji exclaimed.

"Ah! My camera!" Kensuke groaned.

Shinji didn't bother telling them that they could breathe the LCL, more because he was overwhelmed by everything that was happening than out of any kind of malice. The two other boys, seeing that Shinji was "breathing" the amber liquid and having little choice in the matter, eventually inhaled the LCL. They were both visibly surprised when they didn't start drowning.

The entry plug returned to its place inside EVA's back, the armor over it closing up again. A dizzying array of colors flashed over the walls of the entry plug before it again displayed the world outside.

Then static clouded the picture.

"It's due to the presence of two foreign bodies within the plug!" he heard Akagi shout.

Shinji ignored her, turning to look up at the Angel. Now free to fight the beast, he pulled on the whips of light, drawing the Angel near, then flung the beast off with all the strength he could muster. The Angel went flying off over Tokyo-3.

"Now! Retreat!" Misato commanded.

Shinji forced EVA Unit One back to its feet. He was barely aware of Misato and had all but completely forgotten that there were others with him. All he was aware of was the still lingering pain he felt in his own hands and the Angel. The monster that made all this insanity necessary.

"Recovery route 34, retreat to the east side of the mountain," Misato ordered.

Shinji didn't move, nor did he throw Unit One into motion. He didn't look up.

"New kid…she said 'retreat,'" Toji spoke up. "New kid?"

Shinji wasn't paying the least bit of attention to the jock. No, the Third Child's mind was focused upon something he had been told not long ago.

"I mustn't run away," he whispered to himself. "I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away."

With a thought from its pilot, Unit One's left shoulder pylon opened, revealing the progressive knife. The EVA grabbed hold of the weapon, and it came to life with a loud, menacing hum.

"Shinji-kun! Please, obey my command! Retreat!" Misato pleaded over the radio.

At the exact same instant, the countdown clock inside the cockpit indicating how much time remained until the EVA's internal battery died went below one minute. The cockpit was suddenly flooded with red light.

The two things occurring at the same moment was just enough to jolt Shinji out of the near fugue state he had somehow fallen into. The Third Child blinked…and the course of fate began to shift.

"H-Hai," Shinji stammered, returning the knife to its place inside Unit One's shoulder pylon.

_Now_ he threw the EVA into motion, heading for the side of the mountain and the massive lift contained therein. Unit One entered it and several restraints immediately slammed down upon the EVA before gravity was allowed to do its work and bring the massive war machine back to NERV headquarters.

Unit One was allowed to more or less free fall down the lift shaft back to the EVA cage, a series of magnets slowing the lift down as it approached the bottom. Once the behemoth had been safely retrieved and secured, Shinji wasted no time in ejecting the plug, which was positioned next to a large catwalk made more embarking and disembarking from EVA.

"Get out, hurry!" Shinji shouted, opening the hatch on the plug.

Toji and Kensuke scurried out of the entry plug and onto the catwalk, both of them dripping with LCL. Shinji held back a sigh as he watched them go, wishing he could escape from EVA so easily.

The boy turned and the plug was reinserted just an instant before two huge Section Two Agents grabbed Toji and Kensuke and began to none too gently drag them off toward a confinement cell, one of them casually smashing the otaku's already ruined camera as they did so.

"What now, Misato?" Shinji asked over the radio.

"The Angel's tearing up the defense grid like nobody's business, so we're going to redeploy you immediately," Misato said.

Shinji could detect just a hint of apology in her professional tone, and at that moment he was exceedingly grateful her for it. No one else but her seemed to give a damn about how he felt, just so long as he kept piloting EVA, not even his father, but this woman he'd met only a few weeks ago cared.

With just her tone of voice, Misato very briefly slipped past all the defenses Shinji had built around himself. For the barest flicker of an instant, he loved her with his whole heart.

And, unbeknownst to everyone, including Shinji himself, the soul of Yui Ikari inside Unit One sensed that.

"I understand," Shinji said, totally unaware of what was transpiring inside the huge cyborg. "EVA Unit One, launch!"

The violet armored behemoth rocketed upwards with the familiar burst of electromagnetic energy, soon arriving on the surface. Shinji deployed his AT field, which instantly got the attention of the Fourth Angel.

"We've sent you another rifle," Misato said. "Take it!"

A small heads up display popped up on Shinji's screen, pointing him toward the provided firearm. Unit One headed toward it, moving into an artificial canyon created by towering skyscrapers and losing sight of the Angel. The faux building that contained the extra pallet rifle was in sight.

_Though what good it's supposed to do, I don't know,_ Shinji thought morosely, recalling how the Angel had shrugged off the gunfire from his first pallet rifle.

He reached out with Unit One's hand to grab the gun…and the Angel suddenly appeared from around a corner, hovering right in front of him.

"Ahh!" he exclaimed, reflexively sending Unit One staggering backwards clumsily, nearly causing the violet titan to fall.

_It must have gone around!_ He realized. _It's faster than I thought!_

It was the last thing he was able to think before the Angel's pink whips lashed out at Unit One. The cruel energy weapons plunged themselves directly into the EVA's chest, the ultra-dense armor which protected the war machine barely slowing the whips down.

Shinji screamed, feeling like he had been impaled by white hot metal wires. The Third Child clawed at his chest desperately, trying to pull out things which weren't there. All conscious thought had been lost to him; had he been filled with adrenaline and battle fury, he might have been able to ignore the attack and act with some semblence of sense, but this was not the case. Shinji's screams redoubled in volume and intensity as the pain reached a crescendo, and then blessed darkness finally claimed him.

* * *

While blissful oblivion claimed the Third Child, the command center in NERV erupted into chaos.

"The pilot's lost consciousness!" Makoto reported.

"The nerve pulses are flowing in reverse!" Maya added.

"Unit One is reactivating!" Aoba said.

"Berserker," Akagi breathed. "No! Not again!"

On the main screen, Unit One's dark eyes were suddenly aflame with an unholy white light. The restraints holding the behemoth's jaw shut shattered again, and it released an inhuman bellow of rage, grabbing hold of the energy whips which impaled it with one hand. If the EVA even registered the pain from its nearly destroyed hands, it didn't show any signs of it. Instead, the giant tugged fiercely on the whips, pulling the Angel toward itself. The EVA's free hand slammed into the approaching Angel's core with tremendous force, sending it flying backwards again.

The EVA pulled the energy whips again, drawing the Angel toward it once more. And once more Unit One's fist slammed into the Angel's red core.

"It's like some kind of demented game of paddle ball," Makoto said quietly as he stared at the main screen with wide eyes, watching as the EVA repeated this attack more than half a dozen times.

At last, Unit One ceased this tactic, releasing its hold on the energy whips. The Angel didn't fall to the ground, like most of the NERV staff in the command center had felt certain it would, but it did waver visibly, looking dazed.

The EVA didn't give it a chance to recover. Unit One grabbed hold of the stumpy appendages that the energy whips were attached to, the damage to its hands not hampering it in the least that anyone watching could tell, and pulled, releasing another bone chilling roar as it did so.

The Angel's strange limbs were cleanly ripped off its body, sending a shower of red blood down to the street below, the energy whips winking out of existence. The Fourth Angel released a high pitched chattering sound, like an insect in agony. Unit One dropped its foe's limbs to the ground, discarding them like so much rubbish. Both shattered the asphalt of the street upon impact.

The EVA grabbed hold of the Angel's "head" and slammed the beast into the street, totally destroying the pavement. Tremors, just powerful enough to be felt, rippled through the area, scaring the hell out of the people in the shelters throughout the city.

The Angel didn't move at all after this. It appeared to be dead, but Evangelion Unit One knew that it wasn't. However, the giant engine of death intended to rectify that, oh yes it did.

Growling, the EVA raised one of its legs, and then brought its huge foot down upon the Angel's core. Visible cracks spread over the surface of the red sphere, but Unit One didn't seem to notice. It howled, clearly enraged that the core hadn't already shattered. EVA brought its foot down on the core again and again, hammering it with ungodly amounts of force.

And finally the core broke. Shards the size of buses went flying through the air, many of them punching craters into the sides of nearby buildings. Within the safety of NERV headquarters, the MAGI reported that the blue pattern had vanished.

As she watched, Misato held her breath, expecting the Fourth Angel to explode just like the Third had. It did no such thing, however, and instead just continued to lay motionless on the ground. EVA Unit One slumped forward, the light in its eyes extinguishing as it fell silent.

Misato blinked, surprised that the very end of the battle proved so anticlimactic. Surprised, but not displeased.

"Unit One is deactivating," Aoba reported.

"The pilot's still unconscious, but his life signs are all stable," Makoto said. "He wasn't injured. It was probably just that the pain was too much for him."

"Retrieve Unit One immediately," Misato ordered. "I want Shinji out of there as soon as possible."

There was a chorus of acknowledgements all around.

"I'm going down to the cage," Misato said. "Ritsuko, take over for me, please."

She stepped onto a personal lift, which slowly began to descend. The captain sighed once she was off the bridge. For a moment there, Shinji had displayed behavior that could only be described as suicidal. He had seemed to be considering disobeying her order to make a tactical withdrawal in favor of an insane charge. It was almost as if he didn't care whether he lived or died.

That was a bad attitude for any soldier to have, let alone an Evangelion pilot. It could get him a lot of other people killed. She'd have to have a talk with him about this later, but for now, she just wanted to make sure he was all right.

* * *

Shinji, it turned out, was in a very similar state as he had been the last time NERV had removed him from EVA after a battle: unconscious but seemingly unharmed. The Third Child was taken down to NERV Medical, and after a quick check up, deposited in a bed in the ward.

Misato found herself sitting at his bedside. She knew that she should be in her office, doing the paperwork that was no doubt flooding her inbox at that very moment, but she couldn't bring herself to leave.

_He looks so peaceful while he sleeps,_ Misato thought as she looked at his sleeping form. _It's a shame he can't be like that when he's awake, too._

It just wasn't fair, she mused. No child should have to go to war, let alone bear the responsibility of protecting all of humanity while he was at it. Especially not a boy as gentle and clearly unsuited for combat as Shinji, but fate had deemed that he and he only could do the job.

_Fate's a bitch,_ Misato decided, not for the first time.

Really, EVA should be piloted by a professional soldier. An adult who knew the risks that came with war and had enlisted into the military of their own free will.

_Someone like me,_ Misato thought, also not for the first time.

Shinji stirred, pulling the Operations Director out of her thoughts. Misato, surprised that he was waking so soon, checked her wristwatch, only to realize that he'd been asleep for four hours. She had no idea so much time had passed.

The Third Child's eyes fluttered open, and he looked about in confusion until his gaze settled upon his guardian. "Misato?" he asked, his voice a croak. He seemed surprised to see her.

"Hey," Misato said softly. "How do you feel?"

"Tired," Shinji answered.

"You can go back to sleep," Misato said. "I'll come pick you up tomorrow morning."

Shinji shook his head, already forcing himself into motion as he sat up. "No, please, I'd rather go back to the apartment," he said. "Familiar ceiling there."

Misato frowned slightly at the odd comment but decided that if he wanted to sleep in his own futon, taking him back home was the least she could do.

"All right. Your clothes are over there," Misato said, hooking a thumb toward a chair where one of his neatly folded school uniforms lay. "Get dressed and we'll head back."

Shinji nodded and got out of bed, his movements stiff and lethargic. The Third Child made his way to the small stack of his clothing, before he realized that his guardian wasn't leaving. He turned to look at her, his cheeks reddening slightly.

"Uh, Misato…?" Shinji began awkwardly.

His guardian grinned impishly and considered reminding him that he didn't have anything she hadn't seen, not after the incident when he'd met Pen-Pen for the first time. However, after the day he'd had, she decided to give him a break.

"I'll wait outside," she said, quickly departing the room.

She went out into the hall, and a few minutes later, Shinji emerged, now clad in his school uniform. "Ready to go?" she asked cheerfully.

"I guess," Shinji replied, still sounding a bit out of it. "By the way, what happened to Toji and Kensuke?"

Misato frowned, realizing she hadn't given a thought to the two boys who'd hitched a ride inside Unit One since they'd gotten out of the EVA. "I'm sure they've been released by now," she said.

"Could you check before we go?" Shinji pleaded.

Misato held back a small sigh. Only Shinji would fret over two kids stupid enough to venture out of the shelter in the middle of an Angel attack, especially considering that one of them had slugged him earlier. But she supposed that was what made him Shinji; he was compassionate and forgiving, perhaps to a fault.

"All right," she agreed, taking out her cell phone and dialing the head of Section Two. "Hello, this is Captain Katsuragi. I want to know what happened to those two kids who were outside during the battle."

Her eyes widened as she listened to the man stammer out a reply. "Are you serious? It's been four hours!" she snapped, then let out a sigh as the man on the other end of the line spoke. "Fine, fine, I'll go get them myself."

Shinji gave her a questioning look and Misato sighed again. "Section Two just crammed them together into a solitary confinement cell and totally forgot about them. Come on, we're going to spring them."

The Third Child nodded and fell in step behind her as they headed for the detention area of headquarters.

* * *

The solitary confinement cell was a miserable place, meant to break a person's spirit through near complete sensory deprivation. It was pitch dark inside and was also sound proofed, insuring that the only noises heard inside were those that the prisoner (or prisoners, as matters stood at the moment) made himself.

Of course, with two people inside, the effects were somewhat reduced as they could keep each other company. Unfortunately, as it had been made for only one person, the cell was cramped with the two boys inside and quickly became hot and stuffy.

"Ken," Toji said solemnly, "we may be left in here to rot. Our fathers will demand to know where we are, but NERV will just shrug and that'll be that. People will find out that we went outside during the battle and figured we were killed, our bodies blown to itty-bitty pieces."

Kensuke gulped. "I guess that's possible."

"And since we might die here," Toji continued, "I figure it's best if we get everything that we need to off our chests. So, Kensuke, I want you to know…I freaking hate you. You and your need to see something awesome."

"Uh…noted," Kensuke said.

Toji was about to elaborate on just _how much_ he hated Kensuke and his need to witness combat, the hours of sitting in the dark having momentarily brought out a heretofore undiscovered eloquence in the jock. However, he stopped abruptly when they heard the sound of the large tumblers in the thick cell door turning.

They turned to look in the direction of the door just in time to be blinded as it was opened and light poured into their cell. The two boys groaned, shielding their eyes.

"Are you two okay?"

Toji forced himself to look at the source of the voice, squinting considerably. "Ikari?"

"Yes, it's me," Shinji answered. "Are you guys all right? They didn't…hurt you or anything, did they?"

"Nah, they just threw us in here," Kensuke replied. "How long has it been, anyway? Ten, twelve hours?"

"Actually," a new voice, this one distinctly feminine, spoke up in a dry tone, "it's only been four hours. But it could've been much longer, if Shinji-kun hadn't asked about you two. You should be grateful. He was the only one who didn't forget about you and bothered to ask what happened to you."

Toji suddenly felt a wave of guilt wash over him. The kid he'd punched had not only saved his life earlier, but he'd also busted them out of jail. At the moment, he almost wished that Shinji _had_ just left them to rot. Then he wouldn't feel like such a huge jerk.

"Thanks, Ikari," Toji said, bowing formally. "You're all right."

Shinji blinked, then smiled.

"Yeah, thanks a lot," Kensuke echoed his friend's sentiment.

"When your eyes have adjusted enough to the light, we'll get out of here," the woman said again.

Toji and Kensuke nodded, their desire to escape as soon as possible driving them to squint less and less to speed up the process, despite the way it made their eyes water. Finally, the two thought they were good enough to go and wiped the tears from their eyes.

And finally got a good look at Misato. Their jaws dropped as they took in the purple haired babe standing behind Shinji.

Then they both snapped to attention before bowing deeply to her. "Excuse our rudeness, we haven't introduced ourselves," Toji said, a bit louder than was strictly necessary. "I'm Toji Suzuhara."

"And I'm Kensuke Aida!"

Misato smiled wryly. "Yes, I know," she said, just the tiniest seductive lilt in her voice. "Nice to meet you. I'm Misato Katsuragi, Operations Director here at NERV and Shinji-kun's guardian."

The two boys gave the Third Child a stupefied look. Shinji was still too dazed and drowsy to notice.

"Well, come along then," Misato said cheerfully. "I've already arranged for a car to take you home."

Misato led the trio of boys, two of them staring unrepentantly at her legs and rear, to the parking deck. Toji and Kensuke looked longingly at Misato's blue sports car as she and Shinji got into it, the two boys climbing into a marked NERV van.

* * *

Once Misato got back to the apartment, Shinji went directly to his "lovely suite" and practically collapsed on his futon, falling asleep again almost instantly. Misato shook her head and headed into the kitchen.

_What difference does it make whether he's here or at the medical ward in headquarters if he's just going to konk out?_ Misato wondered.

"Wark!"

Smiling, the mistress of the house bent down and patted her unconventional pet on the head. Pen-Pen made a pleased cooing sound in response.

"Hungry?" Misato asked.

"Wark!"

"Okay, boy, I'll get you something to eat," she said.

Misato opened a can of sardines and placed them in his bowl, then cracked open a beer and put it on the floor for him. The warm water penguin immediately guzzled the Yebisu, downing it one gulp, which was a fairly impressive feat, even for the booze loving bird.

_Maybe Shinji's been trying to wean him off beer,_ Misato mused as Pen-Pen let out a very satisfied sounding belch. _It does seem like the sort of thing he'd do. The boy's too much of a prude for his own good..._

Once was finished with his ration of alcohol, Pen-Pen turned to look up at Misato, displaying a notable reluctance to dig into the sardines.

"No, I will not marinate them for you," Misato scowled. "I swear, Shinji-kun is really spoiling you."

"Wark…"

Misato sighed as Pen-Pen slowly began to eat, glancing up at the clock. Since the Angel of the Morning had attacked in, well, the morning, it was only late afternoon at this point.

"Think I should head back to base and get some work done?" she asked.

"Wark!"

The purple haired woman scowled. "You're just playing the part of my conscience because I didn't make your stupid fish all fancy, aren't you?"

"Wark!"

"Yeah, I thought so," Misato grumbled. "Still, you're right. I can practically _feel_ the damn reports piling up on my desk. All right, I'll be back later tonight. Tell Shinji-kun where I went if he wakes up."

"Wark!"

Reluctantly, Misato made her way back to NERV headquarters and then to her office, where there were indeed stacks of paperwork already waiting for her.

_God, I hate this crap,_ she thought as she sat down and got to work. _Why do I put up with this job? The pay's awful, and most of the time I'm a glorified pencil pusher._

Of course, she knew the answer to that: being the Operations Director was the most she could do to take her revenge on the Angels. Still, she liked to the ask the question with righteous indignation whenever she was confronted with paperwork.

_Let's see now, reports on munitions expenditures…_

* * *

Two hours later, Misato was wishing she'd just spent the rest of her day at home, and not just because her brain was starting to go numb. She had barely gotten any work done, mostly because her mind kept wandering.

She just couldn't stop thinking about Shinji, specifically about how unsuited he was to pilot EVA and what she was going to say to him tomorrow about his near insubordination.

The Operations Director had had to deal with subordinates with bad attitudes before, of course, but her standard rebuke for them usually involved the phrase "You enlisted for this," in there somewhere. Since Shinji had agreed to pilot EVA under extreme duress, she wasn't sure what to say to him.

It was difficult for her to fault him for being less than enthusiastic about his new status, but at the same time, if he didn't get with the program, he could get himself killed and everyone else with him.

_Maybe I should just tell him to leave and see if NERV can't find another pilot,_ she thought. _That seems a little extreme, though. It's not like he actually did try a suicidal charge._

It was at this point that Misato looked down at her desk and realized that she'd been staring at the same report for about twenty minutes without having read a word of it.

"Oh, I give up," Misato growled, exasperated.

The Ops Director picked up her red jacket and pulled it on, heading out of her office in a huff. She knew that, come tomorrow, she'd be regretting not forcing herself to put an appreciable dent into her work, but at the moment she just didn't care and went stalking through the halls of NERV, heading for her car.

Unfortunately, she still didn't quite have the layout of the base firmly memorized and took a wrong turn. So instead of arriving at the parking deck, she instead came out in one of the EVA cages. The EVA cage where Unit One was currently berthed, in fact.

Technicians, engineers, and other assorted maintenance personnel were crawling all over the sleeping giant, working feverishly to get it back into fighting shape in time for the next Angel. Most of the damage was on the hands, however, so the catwalk that allowed access to the entry plug was abandoned.

Feeling unusually contemplative, Misato walked onto the catwalk and over to the plug, which was three quarters out of the EVA.

_I wonder what it's like,_ she thought. _To sit in the cockpit and be able to fight those monsters. To have such incredible power at your fingertips._

Being a soldier, Misato had been in combat before. However, there was no question in her mind that fighting the Angels in an EVA was quite unlike anything she'd experienced in her career with the military.

The plug's hatch was opened, and Misato noticed that the white, A-10 connector clips sat on the command seat. She arched an eyebrow, suddenly curious as to what it felt like to wear those things.

She sighed slightly, knowing that this would bug her for months if she didn't do it and satisfy this impulse. Taking a quick glance around to ensure that no one was looking her way, the Ops Director picked up the A-10 clips and carefully climbed inside the plug. It was a tight fit, and the chair was a bit too small for her, thanks to the plug having been designed to accommodate young teenagers rather than adults.

Ignoring the discomfort, she placed the A-10 clips in her hair, then gripped the controls. She knew they were just mockups there to help the pilots focus their thoughts, so she pushed them forward, imagining that the currently opaque plug wall was showing her charging toward one of the monsters that had killed her father.

That was when the hatch suddenly slammed shut.

Misato's eyes widened and she let out a yelp of surprise and fear as she felt the plug descend fully into the cavity in Unit One's body. Her heart hammering, the Operations Director reached up to the hatch and frantically pulled on the handles to open it, but it remained stubbornly shut.

A crazed whirl of colors appeared on the plug walls, and Misato really began to panic, realizing that things were actually starting to activate.

She didn't want to be inside the EVA while it was activating. She had tried to become a pilot when she'd first joined NERV, only to be told in no uncertain terms that Very Bad Things would happen if an adult tried to link with EVA.

"Turn this thing off!" she shouted, hoping that one of the techs she'd been avoiding only moments earlier would now realize she was there. "Get me _out of here_!"

For several terrifying seconds, nothing happened. Colors continued to swirl about in a psychedelic display, and for all Misato knew, no one even had a clue she was in the plug or that anything strange was going on with Unit One at all.

She began pounding her fists against the plug hatch, despite knowing that she couldn't hope to so much as dent the reinforced steel.

Then everything suddenly stopped and the plug was plunged into complete darkness. Misato felt it moving, and quickly pulled the A-10 clips out of her hair, dropping them on the floor a second before the hatch opened.

"Captain Katsuragi?" a very surprised looking tech said, peering into the plug.

"As you were," she told the confused young man, climbing out of the plug. She tried to sound as dignified and authoritative as she could, despite how shaken she felt.

"Are you…all right?" the technician asked.

It was obvious that he really wanted to ask what she'd been doing inside the entry plug but didn't have the nerve to pose that question to his superior officer. Misato felt very grateful for this.

"Fine," Misato replied. "Just fine. I was just…trying to get to my car and got a little turned around."

_And ended up inside Unit One?_ They both thought, one cringing slightly, the other incredulous.

"Should I, uh, call the medical ward?" the tech asked.

"No," Misato said, a little more sharply than she'd intended. "No, that won't be necessary. I'll just be leaving now."

The technician didn't want to let her just walk off after what had happened, but he had no way of making her stop. Both commanders had gone home for the night, so Misato was the highest ranking person on the base.

So the Operations Director headed home, totally unaware of the fact that the soul in Unit One had looked into her mind through the neural connector clips, completely oblivious to the fact that she'd been judged and found worthy, and fully ignorant of what had been done to her.

* * *

It was late evening by the time Misato returned to her apartment, and she found her home dark when she stepped across the threshold. Shinji was apparently still asleep, and Pen-Pen was presumably inside his fridge.

Feeling lonely, Misato popped some instant noodles in her microwave and got herself a beer. The little incident with Unit One had mostly left her mind, and she was once more brooding about what she was going to say to Shinji.

_God, I don't want to have to confront Shinji about his near insubordination tomorrow, but I have to. This sucks,_ she thought.

There was, Misato reasoned, no point in thinking about it now. But the thought refused to leave her mind, so once she'd eaten her noodles, she did what she usually did when she wanted to stop thinking for a while.

Two hours later, Misato fell asleep at the kitchen table, empty beer cans scattered around her.

* * *

Author's Notes: Well, here we are, at the start of my second fan fic. Hopefully you'll excuse the rather lame title.

For those of you who don't know, this is essentially a rewrite of gunman's "Misato's Second Childhood." Gunman was kind enough to give me permission for this, despite the fact that his fic isn't dead as I had originally assumed. So an extra special thanks to him.

Anyway, the plan here it to take roughly the same setup from that fic, but start things off much earlier in the timeline and then go off in a different direction. In other words, this'll start off a lot like "Misato's Second Childhood" but the resemblance will fade after the first few chapters.

By the way, if you're wondering about the double chapter title, it's because I'm trying to follow the format of the anime a bit more closely, and I guess it's also something of a tribute to EVA-R, which did the same thing. I was actually considering doing chapter previews by Misato, complete with promises of fan service, like in the anime. Let me know if you think that would be fun or just over the top.

Anyway, thanks to my readers and reviewers. Now let's have some fun!

* * *

Omake

Cabin Fever

Or…

As Much Yaoi as You Will Ever Get From Me

"Ken," Toji said solemnly, "we may be left in here to rot. Our fathers will demand to know where we are, but NERV will just shrug and that'll be that. People will find out that we got outside during the battle and figured we were killed, our bodies blown to itty-bitty pieces."

Kensuke gulped. "I guess that's possible."

"And since we might die here," Toji continued, "I figure it's best if we get everything that we need to off our chests. So, Kensuke, I want you to know…I love you."

"Wh-what?!" Kensuke sputtered.

"Oh, those glasses just drive me wild!"

"Ah!" Kensuke shrieked like a little girl, trying his best to avoid Toji in the dark, cramped cell. "Damn it, Toji! Stop! You're just going stir crazy! You like chicks!"

"Don't deny our love, Ken-chan!" Toji exclaimed, finally getting a hold of Kensuke and starting to unbutton his shirt.

That was when the door was opened, light flooding into the cell.

"What the hell is going on here?!" Misato demanded.

For comedic purposes, Toji and Kensuke's eyes had no difficulty adapting to the light after spending hours in darkness.

"Woah," Kensuke breathed as he took in the sight of the curvy Ops Director.

"Well...I'm straight again," Toji declared.

"Thank kami," Kensuke muttered, buttoning his shirt.

Misato laughed, obviously pleased at the reactions from the two teens. "Well, it looks like Misato-sama has still got it!"

With that proclamation, she placed her hands on her hips, threw her chest out, and then shook her head, causing her purple locks to fly about dramatically.

Toji and Kensuke responded to this display by fainting dead away, twin trails of blood coming from their nostrils as they lay on the floor.

"That's my guardian," Shinji said proudly.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

Chapter Two: **Transformation/Avalanche**

The next morning, Misato awoke, feeling groggy but not the least bit hung over, to her surprise. Yawning hugely, she threw her arms out and stretched…and as she did, she noticed that something didn't quite feel right.

She looked down at herself and realized that her uniform, which had fit her perfectly when she'd gone to sleep, was now hanging very loosely on her frame.

Her first thought was that someone was playing some kind of prank on her, changing her into a larger version of her outfit while she'd slept. She'd certainly been out deeply enough to remain asleep while someone did as much.

However, she soon discarded the idea. She knew she'd locked the door to her apartment, and nobody besides herself and Shinji had a key. She didn't for a moment entertain the possibility that the Third Child might have stripped her down and changed her in her sleep. Even discounting the fact that Shinji had been clearly exhausted and feeling even less playful than usual last night, he lacked both the nerve and probably the physical strength necessary to pull off such a stunt.

She looked down at her hands and realized that they looked different than they had the previous day. A bit smoother, and perhaps even a little smaller.

Feeling trepidation rising within her rapidly, she turned her gaze toward her kitchen, realizing that everything looked just a little bit bigger than it had before.

_What is going on?_ She wondered.

Suddenly, Misato caught sight of her reflection in the glass door of one of her kitchen cabinets. Her eyes widened to the size of saucers and an earsplitting shriek escaped her.

* * *

Within his "lovely suite" Shinji Ikari jumped nearly a foot in the air, which was quite a feat considering that he'd been laying asleep in his futon when the loud cry had made it to his ears.

Instantly wide awake, Shinji leapt out of his futon and rushed to kitchen, where the scream had come from, his heart pounding in his chest. But when he got there, the sight that greeted him brought him up short.

A teenaged girl with purple hair sat at the kitchen table, looking shocked and panicked. What was especially strange, though, was the fact that the girl was wearing what looked like one of Misato's NERV uniforms, which was comically large on her.

The girl seemed not to notice his presence, looking down at herself in mute shock. After several uncomfortable seconds, Shinji cleared his throat to get her attention. "Excuse me…miss?"

Her gaze snapped up to meet his. "S-Shinji-kun?" she stammered.

He recoiled slightly in surprise. "How do you know my name?" he asked.

"What do you mean, how do I know your name?!" the girl demanded. "I'm your guardian! It's me! Misato!"

"Uh, right," Shinji said, playing along. "Excuse me for a moment."

The boy, not taking his eyes off the seemingly crazy intruder, retreated back to the hallway toward Misato's room. Given the fact that she hadn't come running, she was probably really hung over or even still drunk, he deduced. Still, he wasn't sure what else to do other than get her.

He opened the door to her room, only to find her futon empty. Misato was nowhere in sight.

_Uh oh._

He slowly returned to the kitchen, where the teenage girl, though still looking rather panicky, also had a rather smug expression on her face now.

"See, Shinji-kun, it's really me," she said.

"B-But that's impossible!" Shinji exclaimed.

The girl rolled her eyes. "Fine, I'll prove it to you. Remember the first night you were here, and you went to take a bath and ran into Pen-Pen? You were so scared that you ran out here in your birthday suit!"

Shinji's face reddened. "I thought you agreed never to bring that up again," he muttered, embarrassed all over again by the memory.

Misato smirked. "Desperate times call for desperate measures," she said, then quickly sobered again. "So you believe me?"

"Yeah, I believe you, but…how did this happen?" Shinji asked. "You look my age."

"How should _I_ know?" Misato snapped, suddenly seeming on the verge of hysteria, not that Shinji could blame her.

Shinji sighed. "I'm sorry," he said. "Look, let's go to headquarters and have Dr. Akagi look at you. I'm sure she'll be able to figure out what happened."

"Right," Misato said, composing herself slightly before a new problem occurred to her. "But I don't have any clothes that fit me! I can't go out like this!"

Shinji frowned. He hadn't thought of that. "Uh, you can borrow some of mine. They should fit you decently enough."

"Thanks, Shinji-kun," Misato said. "I'd better go shower first, though. Just leave some clothes outside the door, please."

She left, and Shinji went to his room. The boy changed his own clothes, slipping into a school uniform, before grabbing a pair of blue jeans and his salmon colored shirt and leaving them outside the bathroom door. He had showered the previous night while Misato had been at headquarters, so there was no pressing need for him to take another, fortunately.

Since Misato was still in the shower when he was done with these simple tasks, Shinji decided to make some toast. He was hungry, and hopefully this bit of normalcy would further calm his guardian.

_This is insane,_ he thought. _Even more insane than being called in by Father to pilot a giant robot. I hope Misato's all right. She must be terrified. I know I would be if I woke up one morning and was suddenly half my age._

The only silver lining to this situation that Shinji could see was that it had happened on the weekend, so he wouldn't miss any more school by going to NERV with Misato. And Shinji freely admitted that this was a pretty pathetic silver lining.

_Maybe I'm missing something,_ he thought as the toast popped, aware that he didn't tend to look on the bright side all that often.

Misato emerged a few minutes later, wearing the clothing he'd set out for her. Shinji was momentarily stunned by her appearance. Her curves had been diminished by her transformation, of course, but she still had more than enough to get his attention. Also, seeing her wearing his clothes caused a strange fluttering in his chest, some small part of him deciding for whatever reason to interpret it as a symbol of her being his.

Which was nuts, of course, but still, it was a surprisingly poignant illusion.

"This stinks," Misato complained. "I don't have any underwear!"

Needless to say, this proclamation caused Shinji to blush furiously. Misato caught sight of his burning face and giggled.

"Here," Shinji said, handing her a slice of toast and making a point of not looking at her. "We can eat on the train."

Misato blinked. "The train? Why would we…" she trailed off, realizing that she was quite likely to get pulled over if she tried to drive in her current state. "Oh, right."

"Come on, let's go," Shinji said, heading for the door and grabbing his keys.

"Hang on a sec, Shinji-kun, just let me grab a beer," she said. "I have a feeling that I'm going to need it."

"Misato," Shinji chided.

"What? I…oh, right," Misato groaned loudly. "I'll just drink it here then."

"I, uh, don't think that's a good idea, Misato," Shinji said.

"Why not?" she demanded, opening the fridge and seizing a can.

"For one, it's probably not a good idea for someone who looks about fourteen to go around with beer on her breath," Shinji pointed out. "For another, you might not be used to it any more. Do you want to be tipsy when we see Dr. Akagi?"

Misato looked at the can she had clutched in her grip for a long moment, desperately searching for some counterargument to Shinji's point. Unfortunately, there were none to be found. If Ritsuko smelled beer on her or she was noticeably feeling the effects of the alcohol when they went to see her old friend, the blond scientist would _never_ let Misato live it down.

"Oh, fine," she grumbled, putting the can back. "Why did you have to be right?"

* * *

Dr. Akagi was not amused when Shinji arrived in her office with a teenage girl she didn't recognize in tow. At first she suspected that the Third Child had put his status as an EVA pilot to use and was now in need of some method of birth control. However, when Shinji started trying to explain the situation, her patience began to dwindle even more rapidly than it would have if he actually _were_ trying to get his girlfriend a prescription for the pill.

"The day after an Angel attack is hardly the time to pull a prank, Shinji," Ritsuko scolded.

"I'm not pulling any kind of prank, Akagi-san!" Shinji insisted. "This really is Misato, I swear!"

Ritsuko sighed, clearly not believing it for a moment. "What did she have to do to make you go along with this, Shinji?"

"I didn't do anything!" Misato protested.

"As for you, young lady," Ritsuko said, turning to face Misato. "You should know that unauthorized entry into NERV Headquarters is a serious offense. You could get into a lot of trouble for this."

"I'm authorized to be here!" Misato snapped. "I'm the Operations Director!"

Ritsuko shook her head, exasperated. "You really do look a lot like her. Act like her, too," she said. "What are you? Her cousin? Niece?"

Misato balled her hands into fists. "It's me! Misato!" she exclaimed. "I don't even have any cousins or nieces! I thought you knew that, Rits!"

Akagi just glared at her in response. Misato sighed, then leaned in and whispered something in the doctor's ear. Ritsuko's eyes widened. "You promised we'd never speak of that again," she said, scowling.

Misato smirked, and even Shinji couldn't hold back a tiny snicker. "Desperate times call for desperate measures, Rits," Misato said. "So _now_ do you believe me?"

"Yes, I do. But what could have possibly caused this?" Ritsuko asked. "Has anything...unusual happened to you recently?"

Misato suddenly looked rather sheepish, and Akagi's eyes narrowed. "What did you _do_?" the scientist demanded.

The purple haired girl swallowed, suddenly flashing back to the aftermath of a few particularly unpleasant situations she'd gotten herself back into during college.

_This is the part where she yells at me for how goddamn stupid I've been,_ Misato thought with a grimace, suddenly feeling rather like a child in addition to looking like one.

"Uh, last night, I kind of got curious about what it felt like to sit inside the entry plug of EVA," Misato confessed.

Shinji and Ritsuko both gaped dumbly at her, the two of them obviously incredulous in the extreme, though for somewhat different reasons.

"You did _what!?_" Ritsuko shrieked, abruptly finding her voice.

Slowly, and with her eyes cast downwards the entire time, Misato explained what had happened the previous night. Ritsuko's eyes grew wider and wider with every detail the Operations Director added.

"Let me get this straight," Ritsuko said, when Misato had finally finished. The blonde looked very pale. "You climbed into Unit One's entry plug, put Shinji's connector clips on, and the EVA suddenly inserted the plug. And it began to activate?"

"I…I think so," Misato said weakly. "The walls got all colorful anyway."

Ritsuko sank down into her chair. "My god, do you have any idea how dangerous that was?" she demanded, her anger rising. "For that matter, do you have any idea what happened during the first contact experiments? Back before we really knew how to judge whether or not a pilot candidate was suitable? People have gone insane! People have _died!_"

Shinji cleared his throat and both women looked at him, mildly surprised. They had more or less forgotten he was there. "Misato didn't die or go mad, Dr. Akagi," he pointed out timidly.

Ritsuko sighed. "I guess you're right," she said. "But this…this is just bizarre. I'm going to have to check the records to see if Unit One really did begin to activate last night. And I'm going to have to run a full battery of tests on you, Misato."

"Great," Misato groaned.

"You too, Shinji," Akagi said, turned to the Third Child. "You've been exposed to Unit One far more than she has, after all."

_Yatta,_ Shinji thought sourly.

* * *

"Well, that was embarrassing," Misato grumbled as they left the medical wing of NERV headquarters.

_At least you're the same gender as the doctor,_ Shinji thought, shuddering slightly. Some of the tests the two had been put through were rather invasive, to put it mildly.

"Ritsuko said it would take about an hour for the MAGI to get back with the results of the tests," Shinji said. "Let's go get something to eat while we're waiting."

"All right," Misato said with a small sigh.

The pair headed toward the cafeteria, Misato getting more than a few looks from the various NERV employees they passed by in the halls. Shinji silently hoped that it was the unusualness of having a child who wasn't an EVA pilot around headquarters that was drawing people's eyes. Otherwise it would just be really creepy, as the youngest male besides himself inside the building was at least in his late twenties.

The two arrived at the cafeteria and were relieved to find it mostly empty. Not that many NERV personnel actually ate there, and it wasn't quite the lunch hour yet besides.

Getting some food, the two sat down at an out of the way table and began to pick at their snacks. Neither of them was all that hungry, having eaten breakfast not too long ago, but they didn't know what else to do with themselves to kill time.

Several minutes passed in uncomfortable silence.

"So…" Shinji began nervously as he poked at his small bowl of rice and pickled vegetables with a chopstick. "How are you?"

Misato couldn't help but smirk at that. Shinji was just so painfully awkward it was cute sometimes. "Okay, I guess. I'm trying not to start freaking out again until I get the prognosis. What about you? After all, for all we know, you could start getting younger soon, too."

Shinji shrugged. "If I haven't yet, I don't think I will," he said.

Misato chuckled. "That's the spirit, Shinji-kun!"

He blushed slightly at the praise. "I hope I won't get younger, anyway. Waking up and finding myself half my age isn't something I'd like. I really wouldn't want to relive those years," he commented softly.

Misato arched an eyebrow. "You really wouldn't want to be a little kid again at all?" she asked.

Even she sometimes grew wistful and nostalgic about her childhood, just so long as she focused on the pre-Second Impact part of it. Her parent's troubled marriage had taken a lot of the potential joy out of that part of her life even before Adam had struck, but she sometimes missed being as naïve and relatively carefree as she had back then.

"No," Shinji said, with an unusual level of conviction in his voice.

Misato arched an eyebrow but decided against questioning him further about it.

After that, the conversation turned toward unimportant topics. They made small talk until Shinji glanced at the clock on the cafeteria wall and saw that an hour had nearly passed. "It's almost time," he said. "Let's head back and see if Ritsuko has our test results."

Misato nodded and followed him toward her friend's office with all the enthusiasm of a student off to find out how she did on that exam she forgot to study for.

* * *

"All right, what's the diagnosis, doc?" Misato asked the moment she walked into Ritsuko's office. "Give it to me straight, I can take it!"

Ritsuko threw her friend a half-annoyed, half-amused look before she picked up a clipboard. "According to the MAGI, every sample we took from you indicates that you're no more than fourteen years old," she said.

"Gee, you think?" Misato snapped.

"This isn't just a superficial change, Misato," Ritsuko said, nonplussed. "In addition to your outward appearance changing, your internal organs, skeletal structure, all indicate a lower level of wear and tear. Even the MRI scan we took of your brain is indistinguishable from one of a true fourteen year old. Physically, you are fourteen in every possible respect."

"But why?" Misato asked.

"I'm not…exactly sure about that," Ritsuko confessed slowly, looking uncomfortable.

"But you do have some idea," Misato pressed.

"Yes," Ritsuko said, "but it makes so little sense!"

"Tell me," Misato demanded sternly. "I think I have a right to know."

"All right," Ritsuko said with a sigh.

The blonde rummaged around her cluttered office, producing several charts that neither Misato nor Shinji could make any sense of, propping them up against the wall her desk was pressed up against.

"You're familiar with the radiation produced during Second Impact, correct?" Ritsuko asked Misato.

"Of course," Misato replied.

"Radiation?" Shinji frowned, confused. "Why would the impact from a meteor create radiation?"

Ritsuko turned toward Misato and frowned. "You still haven't told him?" she asked.

"It's been a busy few weeks, okay?" Misato grumbled.

Akagi sighed. "Second Impact wasn't caused by a meteor, Shinji. That was just the public story that the UN released to prevent a panic. In reality, Second Impact was caused when the Katsuragi Expedition accidentally woke Adam, the First Angel."

Shinji's eyes widened. "Katsuragi Expedition?"

"It was led by my father," Misato said.

"Your—"

"I don't want to talk about it," Misato cut him off, her tone icy.

Shinji immediately shut up.

Ritsuko cleared her throat. "While Adam was dying, he emitted an exotic type of radiation that even CERN has yet to successfully duplicate. Everyone on Earth was irradiated. Fortunately, it has no negative effects on a person's health, not even the massive dose Misato received, having been very near to ground zero at the time of Second Impact."

Shinji's eyes widened. "You were—?"

Misato glared at him, and Shinji got the hint and shut up again.

"We believe that this radiation was Adam's way of marking every human on Earth as his enemy," Ritsuko continued. "It's the reason that only people born after Second Impact can pilot EVA. Evangelion has some Angelic properties, you see."

"But what does this have to do with me shrinking?" Misato suddenly demanded, clearly not pleased with where the conversation had gone.

"I'm getting to that," Ritsuko said. "You see, Evangelion emits a similar type of radiation, albeit at a much lower intensity. Similar, but different. The type emitted by Unit One is especially…unique."

"Why?" Shinji asked.

_Because it's made from Lilith, not Adam,_ Ritsuko thought.

"We don't know," Ritsuko lied. "That EVA has always been rather, ah, quirky. Anyway, when Misato climbed in there, she was irradiated by Unit One, much more so than you've ever been, despite you having spent more time in there. The lingering radiation from Adam in her body was, for lack of a better word, neutralized by Unit One's. I believe that Misato's strange transformation was a side effect of this process."

"Does radiation work that way?" Misato asked.

"No!" Ritsuko exclaimed, her frustration clear in her voice. "Radiation isn't antimatter; it's not like alpha radiation will annihilate gamma radiation or anything like that. This whole thing doesn't make any sense."

Scientists like Ritsuko _hated_ it when things didn't make sense; it was just part of their nature. However, Evangelion was so far beyond the ability of humans to fully comprehend that the bottle blonde was almost tempted to just say it was magic and leave it at that. Not that she really even had that option.

"The good news, however, is that Shinji won't be getting younger, since he was never exposed to the Second Impact radiation," Ritsuko added.

"Well, that's a relief," Misato said. "So, what's my prognosis, Rits? Can you change me back?"

Ritsuko shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I don't even have any idea how I would go about attempting such a thing."

Misato grimaced, disappointed but unsurprised. "So I'm stuck as a teenager?"

Ritsuko couldn't help but smirk slightly. "Well, no more than Shinji," she said. "Which is to say I can't reverse the process, but you should grow up naturally again in time like any other teenager."

"Sugoi," Misato said sarcastically, sighing and exhaling a mushroom shaped cloud. "Anything _else_?"

"Yes," Ritsuko said. "With the radiation from Adam completely gone from your body, you are now completely indistinguishable from someone born post-Second Impact."

Misato's eyes widened. "Does that mean—?"

The NERV PA system cut her off. "Will Operations Director Captain Misato Katsuragi and Head of Project-E Doctor Ritsuko Akagi please report to the Commander's office at once? Repeat, Captain Katsuragi and Doctor Akagi, report to Commander Ikari's office immediately."

Misato turned a sharp look at her friend.

"What?" Ritsuko asked defensively. "Something like this happens to the Operations Director, and I'm supposed to keep it from the Commander?"

"No, but it would've been nice if I got to know what happened to me before the brass did," Misato grumbled. "I've got to go face the Commander, and I'm not even wearing any underwear!"

"Misato!" Shinji and Ritsuko exclaimed, the former embarrassed and the latter scolding.

"It's not my fault! I didn't have anything that would fit me!" Misato snapped at Ritsuko, then sighed. "Let's get this over with."

Ritsuko nodded, and they began heading to Gendo's office. Shinji had learned recently that most of the people who had been to the place called it "the lair." The Third Child had to admit that it was a fitting name.

"You don't have to come, Shinji-kun," Misato said. "I'm sure this will only take a few minutes."

"No, that's all right, I'll come," he said, surprising Misato…and himself.

Goodness knew that Shinji had absolutely no desire to venture back into his father's cavernous office and again be placed under the man's unwavering, frigid gaze. And yet…and yet, Shinji found himself feeling strangely protective of Misato, and he didn't want _her_ to have to go in there without him for backup.

Which was totally ludicrous. Shinji didn't even have the guts to maintain eye contact with his father for more than a few consecutive seconds. There was nothing he could do to defend her from Gendo that she couldn't do herself, and he knew it.

But still, he walked along with Misato and Ritsuko, swallowing his terror as they opened the huge door to his father's office and walking in with them.

Gendo looked up as the trio entered. "Come in, Doctor. Captain," he said, totally ignoring Shinji.

The Vice Commander, standing next to Gendo's chair, didn't say anything, merely giving the three a slight nod.

"You wanted to see us, sir?" Misato asked, doing her best to maintain her professional tone and manner, despite how stupid she felt, addressing her commanding officer in a fourteen-year-old body and clad in his son's street clothes.

"Yes," Gendo said, entwining his fingers and leaning his face on them. "I must admit that despite Dr. Akagi's report, I am still somewhat startled to see it for myself."

"That's perfectly understandable, sir," Misato replied, deciding it was wiser not to point out that he didn't _sound_ the least bit shocked.

Gendo nodded slightly. "Yes, well, in light of your recent…transformation, I see little choice but to relieve you of your position as the NERV Operations Director."

Misato recoiled as if struck. "B-But, sir, my mental facilities are completely intact! I—"

Gendo raised a hand and Misato fell silent. "I'm aware of that," he said. "Dr. Akagi included it in her report. However, though your skill remains and you have performed…adequately—"

Shinji tightened his fist, annoyed with his father for being so stingy with praise. Misato was going through a crisis, and a bizarre one at that, yet Gendo couldn't even spare a few kind words.

"—the fact is that the Operations Director is the face NERV presents to the UN military and the JSSDF whenever we need to cooperate with them," Gendo continued. "Asking them to obey the orders of a child officer is simply asking for trouble."

"I understand, sir," Misato said, looking at her feet. Shinji felt sympathy for her welling up inside him. "So, I'm being discharged from NERV?"

"No, not yet at any rate," Gendo replied. "This could cause quite a stir if it ever got out, and NERV's public image is delicate enough as it is right now. This must be kept quiet, so you are going to have to assume a new identity. I'm going to ask you to sign a vow of secrecy about all this, and NERV will help you get your new life set up. However, I'd rather keep you on the payroll. So, in light of Dr. Akagi's report, you are going to be tested for compatibility with the EVA's."

"You mean, you're making me a pilot?" Misato asked, wide eyed.

"If you can sync with the EVA's, you will be designated the Fourth Child," Gendo said, nodding. "Any objections, Miss Katsuragi?"

"N-no, sir," Misato stammered.

"Head down to the test plugs, then," Gendo said. "Dr. Akagi will oversee the tests after I've spoken with her."

"Yes, sir," Misato said.

She saluted crisply and left, Shinji following silently behind her. Once the door had shut behind them, Gendo turned to Akagi.

"Do you really believe she can pilot?" he asked.

"I can detect no reason why she shouldn't be able to," Ritsuko answered. "But there are so many things we still don't understand about EVA…"

Gendo waved this off, aware that she was simply hedging. "Do you believe that NERV can find some way to replicate what happened to her?" he asked.

"I'm not sure, sir," Akagi replied. "Given time, and Adam, we may be able to figure out how to duplicate the types of radiation that caused this. However, we'd need to find a way to control it to ensure it doesn't reduce people to infants, or worse, regress them far enough to kill them. Also, I have no way of knowing if everyone would react the same way Misato did."

Gendo nodded. "The dummy system still takes precedence, but I want you to work on this as well. I will attempt to have more funds allotted to your department."

NERV wouldn't have to go crawling to the old men of SEELE for money ever again if they could control the fountain of youth, after all. That kind of independence could only strengthen Gendo's hand and increase the likelihood of his scenario coming to fruition.

"Yes, sir," Akagi said.

"You're dismissed," Gendo said. "Go and oversee Miss Katsuragi's tests."

Ritsuko nodded and departed.

"Do you really think it's wise to make Katsuragi a pilot, Ikari?" the Vice Commander asked.

"She has a vendetta against the Angels and is trained in battlefield tactics," Gendo said. "I see no reason not to designate her the Fourth, and many reasons to do so. And stripped of her military rank, she cannot probe into the secrets of this organization."

_Not that she was ever very curious about them before, which is probably why you picked her to be the Operations Director to begin with,_ the Vice Commander thought.

* * *

_Misato Katsuragi, the Fourth Child,_ she thought as she and Shinji walked silently toward the test plugs.

She was quite pleased with this development. If she became an EVA pilot, it would put her on the front lines of the war against the Angels, and she'd be able to take her revenge personally. Not to mention the fact that she could take the place of one of the true children. The use of kids as pilots was total madness, after all, even if it was necessary madness.

Shinji, on the other hand, was far less cheerful. He didn't want Misato to become a pilot. She was the first person who had shown him the slightest bit of affection in years, and she could be put in mortal danger if she became a pilot.

Besides, she just seemed…too pure for EVA.

He smirked slightly as he realized that "pure" was not a word that many would use to describe Misato Katsuragi. All the same, it felt right.

Thanks to the oddness of Rei Ayanami, his own sorry state, and certain memories which dwelled in the dark depths of his subconscious, Shinji Ikari had began to attribute an almost supernatural power to Evangelion, a dark power. He saw them as harbingers of misery.

Misato was just so happy and lively that he didn't want her to be touched by something like that. He didn't want her to change. She was supposed to be cheerful and carefree…

_Not a total mess like me,_ Shinji thought dourly.

He took a deep breath, and silently prayed to a god he didn't really believe in that Misato would fail to be able to sync with the EVA units.

They arrived at the test plugs, a trio of large metal tubes that were partly immersed in pink coolant in which the Children took sync tests. The two waited silently together until Ritsuko arrived, both having a thousand thoughts they wanted to share with the other and unable to voice a single one.

"All right, let's get started," Ritsuko said without preamble as she walked into the room. "We'll put you in Unit Zero's test plug first, Misato. Shinji, since you're here anyway, we'll have you undergo a harmonics test as well. You two go get changed. I'll get Maya here while you're gone."

"What am I supposed to wear?" Misato asked. "I don't have a plug suit."

"I'll have someone bring you one of Rei's," Akagi said. "That should do until you're confirmed as the Fourth Child."

Misato nodded, and the two headed off to the locker rooms.

* * *

Shinji grimaced slightly as his plug suit pressurized with a hiss; he'd always found the sensation of the elastic material conforming tightly to his body to be uncomfortable. He then walked over to the area where the pilots entered the test plugs, waiting for Misato.

_Maybe it's just nuts of me to think that anyone who pilots EVA will inevitably become miserable, _he thought, looking distantly at the waiting plug. _But I still really hope Misato can't sync._

"Hey, Shinji-kun!" Misato called cheerfully, knocking him out of his thoughts.

He looked up and did a double take as he saw Misato striding toward him in one of Rei's white plug suits, feeling his face heat slightly. The skin tight garment left very little to the imagination, and despite looking half her real age, Misato was still impressively built.

Not that Shinji hadn't more or less known that already, but right now it was just so glaringly _obvious_…

"So how do I look?" Misato asked, doing a quick 360 degree turn, totally aware of the effect she was having on him.

"Y-you look nice, M-Misato," Shinji forced out.

"Get in the plugs, you two," the exasperated voice of Dr. Akagi came over a nearby loudspeaker.

"Hai!" Shinji said, doing as ordered at once, glad for a chance to escape.

"Spoil sport," Misato grumbled, but also complied, getting into Unit Zero's test plug, noticing that she fit comfortably inside now.

The plugs were sealed, and soon LCL began to rush inside, filling them. Unlike Shinji during his first time inside EVA, Misato knew that she wouldn't drown in the stuff, but she still found it difficult to overcome her instinctual aversion to inhaling liquid for the first time.

However, the LCL soon rose above her head, leaving her with little choice in the matter. She opened her mouth and took a deep "breath" of the stuff, trying to do it all at once.

"Ugh, this stuff is gross!" she complained with a disgusted expression.

Hit by a rare burst of humor, Shinji opened up a communications link to Misato's plug and snapped, "Quit complaining! You're an adult, aren't you?"

Misato responded with a look of wide eyed shock, which instantly made Shinji feel guilty. Her world had been turned upside down, and him making fun of her couldn't be making things easier for her, he knew. He decided to apologize.

Then she burst out laughing before he could even open his mouth. "I guess I deserved that, didn't I?" she chortled.

He smiled, relieved. "Not really, but the opportunity was too good for even me to pass up."

"All right, that's enough playing around," Ritsuko said, though even she sounded amused. "Both of you concentrate on syncing."

"Uh, Rits, how do I _do_ that?" Misato asked.

Ritsuko hesitated, unsure on how to answer that question. Rei, being Rei, had never asked that question. Shinji had learned in his trial by fire against the Third Angel, and Asuka had been trained at the Third Branch. How could she explain a process even she herself didn't fully understand, never having done it herself?

"In the test plug, it's best just to let your mind go blank," Shinji provided, unknowingly coming to Ritsuko's rescue. "In EVA, though, it works better if you try and think of yourself as the EVA and forget that you're you, instead of it."

Misato nodded. "Thanks, Shinji-kun," she said, then closed her communications windows.

* * *

"So how were my test scores, Rits?" Misato asked two hours later, once her first harmonics test had concluded.

"Twelve percent," Akagi said flatly, "barely above the absolute borderline."

Inside their respective test plugs, Misato's cheerful smile fell while Shinji's usual frown twisted upwards.

"That's better than Asuka was able to do when she first started training to pilot Unit Two," Maya pointed out, careful to keep far enough from the microphone so that her words wouldn't be picked up and heard by the pilots.

"I know," Akagi said, placing her hand over the mike. "But Asuka was five at the time. Besides, the Angels are coming _now_. We don't have the luxury of time any longer."

She took her hand off the mike. "All right, Misato, we're going to test you for Unit One now," she said. "Shinji, you're finished for the day."

The pilots acknowledged, and the plugs began to open up. Shinji's small smile faded when he saw Misato's downcast expression. She looked so disappointed that the urge to comfort her was almost overwhelming.

"Good luck with Unit One, Misato," he said, almost despite himself, as he got out of the plug.

She forced a small grin. "Thanks, Shinji-kun."

* * *

"You don't have to be here, you know," Ritsuko said.

"Yes, I know," Shinji said softly, not taking his eyes away from the Unit One test plug, inside which Misato was currently located.

The teen had showered, changed back into his school uniform, and then gone straight to the control room. His presence irritated Ritsuko, though she didn't quite understand why. He certainly wasn't making a nuisance of himself; Shinji remained perfectly silent unless spoken to, just looking at the test plug.

_Only ten more minutes until this test is done, anyway,_ Ritsuko thought to herself. _I can put up with him until then._

The door suddenly hissed open, and Gendo entered. Shinji instantly stiffened, his skin breaking out into goose bumps as he was exposed to the feeling of coldness his father seemed to carry with him wherever he went.

"Commander," Ritsuko and Maya acknowledged in unison.

"As you were," Gendo replied, walking over to his son and standing next to him, gazing at the test plug.

Shinji looked up at his father, who soon turned his gaze downward to silently regard his son, contempt seeming to radiate off of Gendo Ikari in waves, as usual. Shinji quickly looked away, turning his eyes back to the test plug. That reduced the effect but didn't eliminate it, and Shinji suddenly wanted to get away very much.

_No,_ he thought, clenching and unclenching his right hand. _I can't leave and let Misato come out to find only _him_ waiting for her. I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away!_

Shinji silently chanted his mantra to himself for what had to be the longest ten minutes of his short life, feeling as though he could barely remain standing by the time Misato's second harmonics test was completed.

"So how'd I do, Rits?" Misato asked, sounding considerably less enthused than she had two hours ago.

"Your synchronization ratio with Unit One is 38 percent," Akagi answered, visibly surprised. "Not the best we've ever seen, but still very impressive for your first time."

Shinji's eyes widened. He'd been fairly confident Misato wouldn't do well with Unit One after her less than stellar performance with Unit Zero, which made this revelation all the worse.

"So I can pilot?" Misato asked.

"Correct," Gendo said, moving over the microphone. "Report to the control room, Fourth Child."

"Yes, sir!" Misato said cheerfully, saluting.

The test plu opened up, and Misato quickly scurried out of it. Minutes later, she entered the control room. Her hair was damp but not dripping, leading Shinji to think she'd toweled it off before showing up. She looked a bit less buoyant than she had moments before, but Shinji could guess why.

_Expelling the LCL _is_ even worse than inhaling it,_ he thought with a flash of sympathy.

"Commander Ikari, sir," she greeted Gendo.

"Pilot Katsuragi," he said. "In light of your test scores, I am designating you the backup pilot for Unit One."

"Backup pilot?" Misato frowned. "Sir, with all due respect, I believe that in light of—"

"Synchronization ratio is the most important factor in controlling EVA," Gendo interrupted. "So long as the Third's scores remain higher than yours, he will remain Unit One's primary pilot."

"Yes, sir," Misato agreed, her smile returning, if not as brilliant as it had been before.

"I've discussed your situation a bit more with the Vice Commander," Gendo continued. "Since we need to maintain the illusion of you being a different individual than our previous Operations Director, we've decided that you will attend school with the other pilots. It would appear strange to an outsider if you didn't go and they did."

Misato's happy expression wavered noticeably. "Y-Yes, sir."

"Additionally, since you are now a minor, you obviously can no longer serve as the Third Child's guardian," Gendo continued, causing Shinji and Misato's eyes to widen as they wondered where this might be going, "I am transferring guardianship of you both to Dr. Akagi."

"S-sir?!" Ritsuko sputtered.

"You will be their guardian in name only," Gendo said calmly to Ritsuko before turning back to the pilots. "As Pilot Katsuragi is still an adult in mind if not in body, I have decided not to bother moving the two of you from your current residence. If anyone asks why Dr. Akagi is never around, tell them she spends most of her time in the Geofront, working."

_The best way to strengthen lies _is_ to mix in some truth,_ Ritsuko thought sourly, rolling her eyes from the safety of her position behind the Commander's back.

Misato nodded. "I understand, sir."

"Also," Gendo added, "EVA pilots have to maintain their health and are on call twenty-four hours a day, so, if need be, modify your diet accordingly."

"That means no more beer and cutting way back on that instant junk," Ritsuko added with a small smirk.

"Yes, sir," Misato said, the look of devastation now plain on her face.

Gendo nodded. "Very well, then. The Vice Commander has taken care of the legal niceties for you, so report to him after you've cleaned up. He's convinced me to give you the weekend off so you can adapt to your new circumstances. You begin pilot training Monday afternoon after school."

"Yes, sir," Misato said, having composed herself somewhat. "Sir, if I may ask, who is going to be replacing me as the Operations Director?"

"I have not yet decided, but I am currently leaning toward Lieutenant Ibuki," Gendo answered, causing Maya to start.

Misato nodded. Maya didn't strike her as optimal command material; the technician was far too timid, in her opinion. But then, inducting new people into high level positions in an organizations as secret as NERV was a very long process, and they couldn't afford to leave the position empty for that long. Besides, Maya would doubtlessly listen to Misato's input, which could only be a good thing in her mind.

"If that's all, sir?"

Gendo nodded. "Dismissed."

* * *

"This is great, isn't it, Shinji-kun?" Misato asked as she made her way to the Vice Commander's office, once again in Shinji's street clothes. "Even though I'm not the Operations Director anymore, we'll still be working together. Maybe more than before, since I'm your backup pilot."

"Yeah, Misato, great," he said, less than thrilled.

Given the whirlwind of the last several hours, Misato could be forgiven for not noticing her fellow pilot's glum mood, especially considering it sometimes seemed that it was his default state.

"And if my sync ratio rises enough, maybe they'll switch us and make you the backup. Then you won't have to pilot EVA anymore," Misato said cheerfully.

"Right," he said. "Good."

_I wanted that,_ he thought grimly. _I _still_ want that…but not at the cost of putting Misato in my place. She doesn't deserve that._

They reached the door to the Vice Commander's office and were admitted by his smiling secretary. Shinji, who had never been inside it before, blinked at the sight of the place.

Kozo Fuyutski's personnel workspace was as different from Gendo Ikari's as night was from day. It was well lit, considerably smaller, and so far as neatness was concerned, it was best described as organized chaos, with papers and various books on biology, chemistry, and metaphysics scattered around. The various degrees and accolades that he'd accumulated from his career in academia hung on the far wall.

He favored Misato with a grandfatherly smile that he'd never turned on Shinji when they came in. "Hello, Pilot Katsuragi. Ikari."

"Vice Commander," Misato greeted, while Shinji simply nodded in reply. "Commander Ikari said you'd taken care of the legal matters for my new identity."

"Indeed, I have," Fuyutski said, handing her a folder. "Here, this contains your new NERV card, your school registration, and a little background information on your new identity."

Misato opened the folder and read curiously. "Misao Katsuragi, younger cousin to Misato Katsuragi, formally from Kyoto-2. Brought here to be the Fourth Child…Misato Katsuragi transferred to the Fourth Branch in China the same day I arrived?" she sweat dropped. "Sir, with all due respect, do you really believe people will buy this story?"

"People will be suspicious, to be sure," the Vice Commander said with a small grin, "but no one will guess the truth, as it's simply too fantastic. As for why you—Captain Katsuragi—were transferred when you—Pilot Katsuragi—arrived, well, the unofficial story we'll be spreading around to the lower level personnel in NERV is that the two of you absolutely can't stand one another and trying to get you to work together could only be disastrous. And since EVA pilots are a bit harder to come by than tacticians…"

"I see," Misato with a small grin. "That's actually quite clever, sir."

Kozo smiled. "It was the best we could do on such short notice," he said. "Now, I'm going to need you to sign this vow of secrecy…"

Misato looked over the document, which stipulated that she wasn't to tell this to anyone but members of NERV who had Gamma level clearance or higher. She wondered briefly if such a document could be legally binding for her, considering she was effectively a minor again. She then gave a mental shrug and signed it.

"I'll also need you to hand over your old NERV ID card," Kozo said. "And you'll need to turn in your firearm when you come in on Monday for tests."

Misato gave him the card, grimacing as she was reminded that she was losing yet another of the pleasures of adulthood. _No more going down to the firing range and putting holes in targets to relieve stress for me…_

"Right, then, just a couple more things," Fuyutski said. "First of all, as you are now a pilot, you will be paid a pilot's salary."

"How much is that?" Misato asked with some trepidation.

"A half million yen per month, tax free," Fuyutski answered.

She gaped at the Vice Commander in naked shock for a full five seconds before spinning around to face Shinji. "You make more than I did?!" she demanded.

"I'm sorry!" Shinji replied out of reflex, before blinking and turning to the Vice Commander. "I get paid here?"

Fuyutski frowned. "Yes, of course. You didn't know that?"

Shinji shook his head. "Nobody ever told me."

The older man gave a small sigh. "Yes, Pilot Ikari, you get paid. Your salary is deposited into an account in your name every month. You can use your NERV ID as a debit card," he said, then turned back to Misato. "In light of the fact that NERV is responsible for your transformation, and that you'll obviously be needing new things, such as clothes, I've transferred a bonus into your account. One month's salary."

"Thank you, sir!" Misato said, clasping her hands together in an almost prayer-like gesture.

"Think nothing of it," Fuyutski said magnanimously. "That will be all, you two, you're dismissed."

They said good-bye and then made good their escape.

Just before they were out of earshot, Fuyutski heard Misato exclaim, "You are _so_ splitting the rent with me from now on, Shinji-kun!"

The old man couldn't hold back a chuckle as he got back to work.

* * *

"Where are you going, Misato?" Shinji asked as they were leaving NERV, wondering if she was lost again.

"You should start calling me Misao, Shinji-kun. That way you're less likely to slip later when it matters," she said. "And I'm going to the parking deck, of course, why…oh, right."

_Damnit!_ She thought, again having to face the reality of just how truly a mixed bag this situation was.

"Yeah," Shinji said with a small smile.

The duo headed for one of the access points that would take them from the Geofront to the street, from where they could hop a train or bus.

_I wonder how many free rides I can get out of Section Two, now that I'm the Fourth Child,_ she mused as they went.

"C'mon, Shinji-kun!" she cheered as they entered the train station. "Let's get to the mall! I need new clothes! All my old stuff is too big now!"

Shinji Ikari was, all in all, a male who had lived in the absence of the female for nearly his entire life. His mother dead at four, his guardian from that time a man until his arrival in Tokyo-3, and having had no more than the most casual of acquaintances with girls in what he thought of as his "old life," much of the feminine was a total mystery to him, even more so than it was to most men.

But _that_ particular statement set alarm bells ringing even in his mind.

"Uh, actually, Misat…um, Misao, I was thinking that I would head to the grocery store, since, well, you know," he stammered, desperate for an escape. "Why don't you head to the mall without me?"

She pouted. "Oh, fine," she sighed theatrically. "Go, I'll be fine…all on my lonesome…"

He squirmed guiltily. "Uh, well, I guess I could come with you, if you really want me to, that is."

She smirked. "You are way, too easy, Shinji-kun," she declared. "You'll have to work on that, or else every girl you date will wrap you around her little finger in a second."

Shinji just blushed deeply in response.

"Go," she said when it became clear he wasn't going to say anything. "I'll be fine on my own, and I guess we _do_ need some fresh food now that Rits and the Commander had to meddle."

"Right," he said, frankly admitting to himself that he was very relieved to have gotten off the hook. "I'll see you back at the apartment, then."

* * *

Misato, or Misao as she now was to all but a few, returned to the apartment a few hours later, now wearing a white summer dress (and, finally, underwear).

"Mmm," she said, sniffing the air as she walked in, "what's cooking, Shinji-kun?"

"Beer battered shrimp," he answered with a small smile. "Not exactly the healthiest meal in the world, but since you couldn't drink your beer, I figured I might as well put it to use instead of pouring it down the drain."

To say that Misao was pleased with the way Shinji had avoided wasting the golden nectar of the gods would be an understatement. Shinji had expected her to appreciate his little gesture, but he was rather unprepared for just _how much_ she appreciated it.

"I love you," Misao proclaimed, her eyes looking decidedly liquid as she said it.

Shinji blushed furiously. "Uh, um…th-thank you."

She grinned. "Well, I'm going to put my new stuff away," she said, bouncing off toward her room, carrying what looked like, to Shinji's eye, a suspiciously small number of bags.

Shinji sighed softly as she left, then turned to Pen-Pen, who was standing by his feet. "I told you that your mistress hadn't changed a bit, didn't I?" he asked smugly.

"Wark!" the penguin agreed.

Misao returned a few minutes later, and the two of them sat down and got to the task of reducing the pile of shrimp Shinji had cooking into a pile of shrimp tails. Pen-Pen sat on the floor, eating his sardines and fervently hoping the boy had just been kidding when he said there would be no more beer in the apartment after today.

"So what do you plan to do on Sunday?" Shinji asked as they ate.

"Hmm, well, I'll have to get my car put into long term storage…or something," Misao said. "I like that car way too much to just sell it. Then, I'm going back to the mall, and _you're_ coming with me!"

"Huh? But I thought—"

"That was just a little preliminary shopping, silly boy," Misao said, wagging a finger at him. "Did you really think I could fit a whole new wardrobe into those few bags? Besides, I've had a very rough day, and I can't drink anymore. I _need_ some retail therapy."

Shinji sighed, realizing he should have known he couldn't escape being her pack mule so easily. "Yes, Misao."

"After that, I think I'll donate most of my current clothes to charity, since they're too big for me," she said. "I'll want to save a couple of my favorites for when I grow back into them, of course…"

Shinji listened to her ramble, contemplating that in many ways, she really _hadn't_ changed a bit.

* * *

Fate could be ironic at times.

Sometimes, a huge event, by itself, had little power to alter destiny, but the addition of another small thing could cause an enormous shift. Like the falling of a single snowflake setting off an avalanche a day after a great blizzard, the small event would have done nothing and been soon forgotten had it had not chanced upon exactly the right time and place.

That night, as Shinji Ikari lay down in bed, his SDAT player's batteries died on him.

Without the melodies of Bach and Mozart to occupy his mind as he settled into slumber, unpleasant thoughts inevitably crept into it.

At first, Shinji stumbled out to the kitchen, opening up the junk draw in search of fresh—or at least, not dead—batteries. This search proved ultimately fruitless, however, and he was forced to return to his futon without a means of reviving his music.

_I'll get new batteries tomorrow,_ he thought, laying down.

He shut his eyes and tried to blank his mind, but this worked even less than it usually did, thanks to the events of the day.

(_"Pilot Katsuragi, in light of your test scores, I am designating you the backup pilot for Unit One."_)

Shinji tossed and turned a bit, trying and failing to get such snippets of memories out of his head.

(_"And if my sync ratio rises enough, maybe they'll switch us and make you the backup. Then you won't have to pilot EVA anymore."._)

Misato was always so happy and cheerful, so alive and vital. And she was kind to him, even if she did tease him incessantly. She didn't _have_ to take him in after the First Battle of Tokyo-3, after all.

She did it because she wanted to, wanted _him_.

A part of him tried to reject that out of hand, afraid of where such a belief could lead, afraid of the possibility of him forming a connection with someone and the pain it made him vulnerable to. That part of him scrambled to find a reason, _any_ reason for her wanting him in her home besides the possibility that she might actually like him and care about him to at least some degree.

Ultimately, it could find none that Shinji really believed.

(_"And if my sync ratio rises enough, maybe they'll switch us and make you the backup. Then you won't have to pilot EVA anymore."_)

God, he didn't want Misao to pilot EVA, to be tainted by that infernal thing's dark power.

He remembered hearing the story of the monkey's paw, which granted wishes, but did so in only the worst ways possible. Shinji felt a sudden swell of guilt for having wished, seemingly thousands upon thousands of times, to escape from NERV and EVA.

There had to be something he could do.

(_"Synchronization ratio is the most important factor in controlling EVA. So long as the Third's scores remain higher than yours, he will remain Unit One's primary pilot."_)

His eyes widened as it finally hit him. It was so simple he wondered how he'd managed to overlook it until now. Misao was the backup pilot for Unit One and would remain so unless her sync ratio rose higher than his own, or he otherwise became unfit to pilot.

All he had to do was keep his sync ratio above hers and not screw up in any terrible way, and Misao would be safe. That way, EVA Unit One's effects would remain contained to the already screwed up Shinji Ikari, leaving the happy and vital Misao Katsuragi untouched. And just once, he would protect another from pain rather than hurting those around him and being a burden.

The idea of such martyrdom fitting far too comfortably into Shinji's mind, he closed his eyes, finally getting to sleep.

And just like that, some dead batteries helped the Third Child finally discover something to fight for.

Author's Notes: This chapter probably looks fairly familar to anyone who's read "Misato's Second Childhood," but as I said, I wanted the same setup, and this is as close as the resemblence will ever get.

Not that this was exactly the same. I've always wondered how Shinji would have fared if he'd chosen a reason for piloting other than earning daddy's love. I guess we're going to find out. Of course, Shinji _did_ screw up quite hard a few times in the course of canon Eva, so I wouldn't abandon hope of seeing our heroine piloting Unit One yet if I were you.

Also, I never felt the need to move them out of their apartment. It just wouldn't add anything to my plans for this story, plus I really don't think Gendo gives a damn what his son does so long as he pilots Unit One and doesn't mess with the scenario, so I didn't see him making them move due to finding the current living arrangements inappropriate.

Anyway, next chapter will be fun, with our heroine trying to get settled into her new life with Shinji's help (Misao: and of course, more fan service!)

Thanks to all my readers and reviewers.

Omakes

Just Take It and Go

Dr. Akagi was not amused when Shinji arrived in her office with a teenage girl she didn't recognize in tow. She suspected that the Third Child had put his status as an EVA pilot to use and was now in need of some method of birth control.

Ritsuko sighed. She decided that she just could _not_ deal with this crap at the moment, and that what the Third Child did on his own time really wasn't her problem.

"Don't say anything," she commanded before either teenager could say a thing.

She opened one of her drawers and pulled out a prescription pad and quickly scribbled something down on one of the sheets of paper. "Here," she said, handing it to Shinji. "Just take it and go. I'm busy."

Shinji blinked stupidly at the paper. "What is it?"

Akagi heaved a sigh of annoyance. "It's a prescription for birth control pills for your new girlfriend," she explained. "Have all the fun you want, but please try to be discreet and keep NERV's public image in mind."

Shinji's eyes widened. "N-No, that's not--!"

"Thank you, Dr. Akagi!" Misato interupted. "You're even cooler than Shinji-kun said! Well, let's go, Shinji-kun! We have a 500 spring sonata to perform!"

"NANI?!"

Chain of Command

NERV was perhaps one of the most screwed up organizations ever made by man. The place was a cesspit of secrets, it consumed massive amounts of taxpayer money with little or no money, and its leaders were plotting to bring about the end of the world.

However, people still gathered around the watercooler during breaks to exchange gossip, just like any normal business or organization.

"So, have you heard that Ikari's planning on giving Maya the Captain's job?" Aoba asked.

"Yeah, what's up with that?" Makoto replied.

"Huh? What do you mean?" Aoba asked.

"Well, in the later episodes of Evangelion, when an Angel showed up and Misato hadn't shown up yet, _I_ was the one who was giving out orders," Makoto explained, cheerfully ignoring the fourth wall. "So should I get the Ops Director job?"

"Uh, maybe."

"I mean, I'd totally understand if Dr. Akagi left and Maya became the new Project-E Chairperson," Makoto continued, "but the Operations Director? I just don't get why Commander Ikari would do that."

"It's not so much Ikari as it is the author," Aoba explained, figuring that if Makoto was going to breach the fourth wall, he might as well, too. "You see, Maya is cute and female, which automatically makes her more interesting than you."

Makoto scowled. "Damn superficial anime fans," he grumbled.

Aoba's eyes narrowed. "So, tell me, why were you so into Captain Katsuragi?"

"Why?" Makoto echoed, looking surprised. "Because she had really, really big...oh, I see what you did there."

Aoba smirked. "Pot, meet kettle."


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

Chapter Three: **Adaptation/Adaptation**

Misao yawned hugely as she stumbled into the kitchen the next morning, clad in a white, oversized T-shirt. "G'morning," she mumbled, walking over to the fridge and opening it.

At the stove working on breakfast, Shinji quirked an eyebrow, wondering what Misao was looking for. Meanwhile, another part of his mind wondered if she was wearing anything under that T-shirt…

_No, Shinji! Bad Shinji!_ He mentally yelled at himself, shaking his head slightly to clear out the dirty thoughts.

"Oh, right, no beer," Misao groaned. "This'll take some serious getting used to…"

Shinji held back a small sigh, feeling a renewed wave of sympathy for Misao. While he had never approved of her drinking habits, he was sure the reminder of how much her life had just changed had to hurt.

Despite this, he couldn't help but marvel at how well the newly minted Fourth Child was adapting to her new situation so far. Shinji suspected that, if _he_ had woken up that day and found himself half his age, he'd still be freaking out. And for him, that transformation would just be changing him from a minor to an even younger minor, not from an adult to a minor.

"Here," he said, handing her a mug of hot green tea. "I think this should do a better job of waking you up than a beer."

"Don't see how, not unless you've thrown in a shot of scotch," Misao mumbled, but accepted the cup and plopped down on one of the cushions by the table.

Shinji grimaced at the thought of such a mixture. Not that he could really imagine what it would taste like, never having tried scotch. However, the idea just seemed _wrong_ to him.

A few minutes later, he was placing rice, miso, and toast on the table. He also put some fish in Pen-Pen's bowl, staving off the wrath of the unusual water fowl for another few hours.

Misao, sipping at her tea, was starting to look slightly more alert. "So, ready for today, Shinji-kun?" she asked before she dug into her breakfast.

_More than you,_ Shinji couldn't help but think.

"I guess so," he said with a shrug.

"Good," Misao said, "because we've got a lot to do today! Mou, I wish I had a few more days before having to start school…"

He noticed her normally happy expression become pensive as she gazed into her nearly empty cup of green tea.

_I was a mute when I was this age the first time,_ she thought. _I never experienced these years of school. For anyone else, this would be like a sort of do-over, but I didn't really live a few of these years, I just…existed, so it'll effectively be my first time._

"Something wrong, Misao?" Shinji asked.

"Oh, it's nothing, Shinji-kun," she said, waving off his concern and turning back to her breakfast.

The rest of the meal passed in silence. When they were done, Shinji began to do the dishes while Misao went to the bathroom to shower and get ready for the day.

* * *

"What do you think of this one, Shinji-kun?" Misao asked, bursting out of the changing room in a rather fetching red and black dress that vaguely resembled her old NERV uniform.

"M-Misato!" Shinji exclaimed, flushing crimson.

"It's Misao now, remember?" she sighed. "And you've got to be ready to offer opinions on clothing, Shinji-kun, instead of just getting all embarrassed. It's one of the essential services males are expected to perform when they accompany females on shopping trips."

"In addition to carrying your bags?" Shinji asked, shifting the dozen or so he was holding in a futile attempt to find a way in which the burden was easier to lug around.

"Exactly, now you're starting to get it!" Misao said, wagging a finger. "You'll make some lucky girl a fine boyfriend one day, thanks to my tutelage!"

"Er, thanks," he said, blushing again, but not quite so deeply as before.

"You're welcome," Misao said brightly, going over to a group of mirrors next to the door to the changing room.

The Fourth Child began to study her reflection, which didn't exactly surprise Shinji, since he _had_ been rather useless so far as forming an opinion of the dress went. He just stood there, waiting patiently while she examined herself.

Then she thrust her chest outwards and tugged on the dress, so the material was pulled taut against her torso. Shinji felt his face heating up and tried to look away, but soon caught himself glancing at the display his flat mate was putting on out of the corner of his eye.

It was the ultimate bind. If he looked at her, he felt guilty about being a pervert. If he looked away, his hormones immediately started screaming at him to look at her again.

"What are you doing?" Shinji finally asked, unable to take it any longer.

"Oh, just looking at myself," Misao answered, then sighed. "It's kind of depressing, though. I'm so _tiny_."

Had any other fourteen-year-old girls been within earshot, they might well have felt the urge to stab the quite "gifted" Fourth Child in a fit of rage and jealousy, as she could really only be described as tiny relative to her adult self.

Fortunately for her, her companion was a fourteen-year-old _boy_, and a very shy one at that. He just responded by blushing even more heavily.

"It's not like it's all bad, though," Misao continued, suddenly becoming cheerful again, "On the plus side, it's been forever since I've been _this_ perky!"

Shinji's response was a stream of incomprehensible syllables that clearly wanted to be words but fell just short of achieving their ambitions. Frowning slightly, Misao turned to him and nearly burst out laughing when she got a look at the Third Child. The color of Shinji's face was moving past red and toward purple, and she doubted he was pinching the bridge of his nose out of exasperation.

"You're _way_ too easy, Shinji-kun," Misao informed him with a chuckle, but stopped checking herself out, allowing him to retreat from the verge of rupturing a blood vessel.

"Sorry," Shinji said, largely because he was unable to think of anything else to say, then tried to shift the conversation down less perilous avenues. "Um, shouldn't we go and get your school uniforms and supplies now?"

"Yeesh, you're no fun," Misao pouted.

"Uh, sorry."

Misao waved this off. "No, no, you're right. I need to get that stuff, and I have already spent most of my bonus…all right, Shinji-kun, just let me change out of this dress and we'll go."

She didn't make a move to retreat back into the changing room, however, and Shinji shot her a confused look.

"Could you unzip me, Shinji-kun?" she asked coyly, turning to show him where the dress's zipper was.

"M-Misao!" he exclaimed, somehow managing to not pass out.

She laughed. "Well, at least you got my name right this time," she commented, before disappearing back into the changing room.

Shinji took a deep, steadying breath once she was gone.

_Shopping day,_ he mused, _is a very dangerous day._

* * *

About an hour later, Misao seemed to decide that her pack mule had earned himself a breather and they stopped at the mall food court for lunch, much to Shinji's relief.

"I think we're almost done," Misao said. "I just need to pick up some school supplies and we can head back to the apartment."

Shinji nodded, very glad that the ordeal was nearly over. "Are you looking forward to school?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"Actually I'm kind of nervous about it," Misao confessed. "It's been a long time since I went to school."

_And I don't really even know how to be a young teenager, since I missed it the first time around,_ she added silently.

"Oh, well, I'm sure you'll do fine," Shinji said, trying to reassure her but not quite sure how. "I mean, if _I_ can do it, how hard can it be?"

"Shinji-kun, you really need to stop denigrating yourself like that," Misao chided him, frowning.

"Sorry," he said. "I'm just trying to say that school's not that hard. And besides, I'll be there, too, so you'll already know somebody there."

Misao smiled at him. "Thank you, Shinji-kun. That means a lot to me."

"Oh, you're welcome," he said, rubbing the back of his neck bashfully. "So, have you figured out what you're going to do about the car yet?"

"Not yet," Misao said. "I can't just rent a garage and leave it sitting there for years. It'll be a wreck by the time I'm ready to drive it again. I need somebody to maintain it, so I've got to find a mechanic who's willing to take the job or something."

"Maybe you should just sell it?" Shinji suggested.

"No way!" Misao exclaimed, shooting to her feet. "I love that car, Shinji! It was hard to find, and I _will_ drive it again!"

The loud proclamation, made by a young teenage girl no less, drew quite a few curious stares from the other people in the food court. Misao noticed the unwanted attention she'd garnered immediately and slowly sank back down into her seat, blushing.

Shinji held back a snicker, amused despite himself to see Misao being the embarrassed one, if only for a moment.

_She's cute when she blushes._

He jerked straight in his chair, blinking as he wondered where _that_ had come from. He shook his head slightly and turned back to his food.

* * *

"Misao, come on, we're going to be late!" Shinji called the next morning, before school.

"Hold your horses, Shinji-kun, I'm coming!" Misao called from her room.

He sighed softly, consoling himself with the knowledge that his attendance record wasn't exactly spotless anyway.

The doorbell rang, and Shinji frowned, wondering who it was. He went over to the door and peered through the peephole. He was surprised to see Toji and Kensuke standing on the other side of the door.

Shinji, being as introverted as he was, usually didn't react with pleasure to unexpected callers and today he was even more displeased than he normally would have been. Though he was trying not to let her know, he was nervous about Misao's first day of school, largely because he was afraid that he would make some kind of mistake and blow her cover story. Any deviance from the usual routines only seemed to increase the odds of this happening, at least in his mind.

However, he didn't see any way he could avoid the two other boys if they really wanted to see him, so he unbolted the front door and then opened it.

"Good morning, Ikari!" Toji and Kensuke practically bellowed in unison, startling Shinji and causing him to jump back a step. "Good morning, Misato!"

They looked past him and into the apartment expectantly, but no one called out to them in return. Their faces fell, and the pieces began to fall into place in Shinji's mind.

He had been groggy and not quite all there after the battle against the Fourth Angel, but Shinji had still managed to notice the way the two other boys had stared at his guardian, if only because they'd been so blatant about it.

_They're just hoping to get a glimpse of Misato,_ he thought petulantly.

"Um, hi," Shinji said, forcing himself to be polite.

The two other boys turned their attention back to him and grinned. "Hey, Shinji," Toji said. "Look, we wanted to thank you again for bailing us out the other day."

"Yeah, I don't know how much longer we could have taken being cooped up in that tiny cell," Kensuke added, shivering slightly at the memory.

"Anyway, me and Ken go by this place on our way to school, and we thought we'd stop by and see if you wanted to head there with us," Toji said.

Shinji blinked, his irritation rapidly ebbing away as he realized the other two boys might have come to the apartment for other reasons besides the chance to ogle his guardian.

"Oh, uh, yeah sure, that would be great," Shinji stammered. "But we have to wait for—"

"Why, hello!" Misao said cheerfully, walking up next to Shinji, now wearing the green and white uniform for girls at their school. "You must be friends of Shinji-kun!"

Shinji had to work very hard not to laugh at the shocked looks Toji and Kensuke were giving the seeming "mini-Misato."

"Um, yeah, I guess," Shinji said. "This is Kensuke Aida and Toji Suzuhara. Guys, this is Misao Katsuragi, Misato's cousin from Kyoto-2. She's starting at our school today."

It felt really odd, Shinji mused, introducing people who already knew each other, but he supposed it was just another facet of the craziness that his life had become ever since his father had summonsed him to Tokyo-3.

"Nice to meet you!" Misao said.

Toji and Kensuke traded a look, and Shinji had to resist the urge to groan, easily able to see the wheels in his two new friends' heads turning.

The two of them had obviously been _very_ strongly attracted to Misato from the moment they'd laid eyes on her. They believed that Misao was related to Misato and looked exactly like a younger version of her. Therefore, it was a fairly safe bet that in a few years, Misao would look like Misato.

_Actually, it's a sure bet, but they don't know that,_ Shinji thought.

The two teens had spent most of the walk to the Katsuragi apartment arguing over which of them was more likely to get Misato, but for all their bravado, even they knew that their odds of getting anywhere with a woman who was twice their age were slim to none.

Misao, therefore, presented them with a very interesting opportunity.

"Nice to meet you, too!" they exclaimed, louder than was strictly necessary, as they both bowed deeply to Misao in perfect unison.

Misao giggled, and Shinji was somehow instantly sure that she'd followed their thought processes at least as easily as he had. "Well, let's go. I don't want to be late for my first day!" she said.

"Right!" Toji and Kensuke said, still in unison, and the four teenagers took off.

The group was silent for a minute or two as they walked toward the school, and Shinji suspected that the two other guys were wracking their brains for an appropriate pick up line.

"So, Misao…" Kensuke began, then trailed off, his courage apparently deserting him.

The truth of the matter was, though both he and Toji wanted to come onto Misao, neither of them exactly knew how to go about it. It had only been a couple of years since they'd even developed an interest in the fairer sex, and they had yet to learn the fine art of flirting.

"Yup," she replied, graciously covering up his little stumble for him, "my parents weren't exactly very creative people when it came to names."

Toji and Kensuke forced a gale of laughter, and Shinji rolled his eyes. This, he realized, could get very tiresome, very fast.

"So, Misao, why did you move here?" Toji asked. "Most people are moving _away_ from Tokyo-3."

"The same reason Shinji-kun moved here, of course," she replied with a grin.

Kensuke's jaw dropped. "Y-You're a pilot, too?!"

"Sure am!" Misao replied. "I don't have my own EVA, though. I'm the backup pilot for Unit One for now."

"So they're taking on reserve pilots now?" Kensuke asked eagerly, forever looking for a way into Evangelion.

"Not really. I'm sort of a…special case," Misao said.

Toji, hoping to make a little progress while Kensuke was preoccupied with this new revelation, smiled at Misao and asked, "So, what's it like, working with your cousin at NERV?"

Misao scowled. "I wouldn't know. They transferred her to the Fourth Branch in China right after I got here."

Toji blinked. "Huh? Why would they—?"

Shinji motioned frantically for him to shut up, and Misao pretended not to notice his rather obvious gesticulating. Toji quickly got the hint.

"So who's your guardian now, Ikari?" the jock asked instead.

"A NERV scientist named Ritsuko Akagi," Shinji answered. "She seems to be married to her work, though. She's almost never around the apartment and even spends most nights at headquarters."

"Whoa, wait a second!" Kensuke said. "You two live more or less alone?"

"Um, yeah," Shinji said mildly, seemingly a bit confused that he would bother to ask such a question.

Toji and Kensuke again exchanged a look.

_The clueless…lucky…IDIOT!_ They thought simultaneously, wondering why fate kept bestowing such opportunities upon someone who was either too immature to want them or too oblivious to see them. And why fate saw fit to deny either of them "real men" such providence.

The rest of the short walk to the school was spent with Toji trying to chat up Misao and Kensuke vacillating between doing that and asking her about EVA, the teenaged otaku's desires clearly at full scale war with one another. Shinji mostly kept silent, just observing. Misao replied cheerfully to the boys' clumsy attempts at coming onto her, though she didn't seem to be flirting back at them.

She cheerfully deflected all of Kensuke's inquiries about NERV and EVA, telling him she didn't know, saying that things were classified, or simply changing the subject with a deftness that slightly awed Shinji.

Watching the scene but not really a part of it, the Third Child began to experience a curious sensation, one that was so unusual to him, a person who had more existed than lived for over two-thirds of his life, that he wasn't able to immediately identify it. It wasn't until they reached the school grounds that he recognized it.

_Am I…jealous?_ He wondered.

* * *

"Misao Katsuragi? Oh, yes, I have your registration papers right here," said the wizened old school secretary, peering through her thick glasses at a sheaf of papers. "Nice to see a little new blood in here. The last new student to arrive…"

She trailed off, turning her bespectacled gaze on Shinji. The boy fidgeted a bit under it, wondering if the secretary was putting some of the pieces together or not.

Not that it really mattered that much. Kensuke would doubtlessly tell his otaku friends about the new EVA pilot soon, and eventually it would be all over the school. Misao, of course, had to realize this, but Shinji hoped she didn't get mobbed later like he had and regret letting their new friends know.

The Fourth Child cleared her throat, bringing the secretary back to reality. "Oh, yes," the old woman said, handing Misao a paper. "Here."

Misao took the paper and scanned it briefly. "Hey! I'm in the same class as you are, Shinji-kun!"

He gave her a small smile. "Everyone in our year is in the same class, Misao. It's because there are so few students left with everyone leaving the city."

"Oh," she said, grinning sheepishly.

"I trust you can show her the way to class, then?" the secretary asked Shinji with a small smile.

He nodded, and the two students left the office, heading for classroom 2-A.

"Are you all right?" he asked as they walked through the halls, noticing that she was looking rather anxious.

"Fine," she replied, "just nervous."

He shook his head. "Misao, there's nothing to be worried about," he said. "I'll be there, and school's not that hard. After being the Operations Director for NERV, this should be a breeze for you."

She smiled slightly, feeling impressed at the normally very introverted boy's efforts to help her through getting used to her new situation. She also found that his assurances actually were making her feel a bit better, to her surprise.

"Thanks, Shinji-kun," she said. "So, is there anything I need to watch out for?"

"Uh, not much, though I should probably warn you that the sensei is an, um, older man that the school pulled out of retirement because most of the teachers have left the city, too," Shinji said. "He gets stuck on the topic of Second Impact a lot."

Misao grimaced. Hearing about Second Impact all the time definitely wasn't her idea of a good time, even if it was just the cover story she'd be getting. Still, she had tuned out her professors all the time in college, so she should be able to just zone out when sensei started rambling about an event she understood far better than he did.

_How bad could it be?_ She thought.

* * *

**Misa-chan313: **Shinji-kun, if you care about me AT ALL, you'll kill me now and put me out of my misery!!1!

He couldn't help but snicker a little bit at the instant message that popped up on his laptop's screen, not needing very long to figure out who it was that had sent _that_ instant message.

Things had begun well enough for the Fourth Child. When she'd introduced herself, she had instantly earned the full attention of the male half of the class, and thus the envy of the female half. Any teenage girl would put that into the win column.

There had been a moment when she'd almost written "Misato Katsuragi" instead of "Misao Katsuragi" on the board, causing Shinji's heart to start hammering unpleasantly, but she'd caught herself before making a noticeable mistake.

Then she'd sat down, and Sensei had begun his usual Second Impact lecture.

**Ikari S.:** Misao, it's only been twenty minutes. Sensei hasn't even gotten warmed up yet.

What followed was a long stream of incoherent letters and symbols. Shinji wasn't quite sure if she was just pressing random buttons in her distress or if the school network had programming to censure profanity.

Finally it stopped, and Shinji heard Misao take a deep breath, despite the fact that she was halfway across the room from him.

**Misa-chan313:** He really does this everyday?

Shinji was unable to stop himself from taking a small degree of perverse pleasure in reintroducing his guardian to the kinds of things kids had to put up with. However, he made certain not to let anything he typed to her reflect that, not feeling any need to make the situation worse for her.

**Ikari S.:** Pretty much, I'm afraid. The rest of us don't like it, either, but there's nothing we can do about it.

There was a long pause as Misao digested that unhappy piece of information. It ran for so long that Shinji began to wonder if she'd shut down her chat program entirely, and he finally sent her another message, wanting to know whether or not she'd logged out.

**Ikari S.:** Are you all right?

**Misa-chan313:** Yeah. It's just that I kind of got used to being the one giving the orders most of the time…and the class rep reminded me of a drill sergeant when Sensei came in and she barked at us to bow like that. I just went on auto-pilot and did it without thinking! I almost saluted him, too!

Shinji grinned slightly. He had never thought of the class rep like that before, but he had to admit it was an apt comparison.

**Ikari S.:** She does have that effect, but she's okay otherwise. You'll get used to it here eventually, I promise.

At her desk, Misao bit her lower lip, not feeling at all sure about that. School had so far been the most jarring experience she'd been through since she'd "shrunk" and the day had only just begun.

All the other students seemed so young, which they were, of course. But at the same time, they didn't seem small, physically, because she was roughly the same size as they were.

It was a very weird juxtaposition, and it left her feeling very unsure of her ability to fit in at school. It left her feeling…

_Like a damn teenager, an uncertain teenager,_ she thought with a soft sigh, deciding she'd better change the subject of her little electronic conversation with Shinji.

**Misa-chan313:** So, your friends seem nice.

Shinji nearly laughed out loud, something he was reasonably sure would get the teacher's attention, so he restrained himself.

**Ikari S.:** You do realize that they're being so friendly because they expect that you'll grow up to look like your cousin.

He nearly wrote "you" at the end of that sentence, but decided to err on the side of caution. He was fairly sure it was a private chat they were having, but then again, he'd thought the same thing when he'd been asked if he was the pilot of Unit One.

**Misa-chan313:** Of course I know that, silly boy.

Shinji grinned upon reading those words, realizing her could practically hear her giggle.

**Misa-chan313:** Hey, Shinji, is that all Rei ever does?

He blinked at the abrupt change of topic, then turned his head to look at the corner desk that Ayanami occupied, finding her staring out the window as usual.

**Ikari S.:** Pretty much. I think I've seen her reading sometimes, too.

**Misa-chan313:** Weird. She seems so alone. We should try and make friends with her.

The Fourth Child told herself she was doing this entirely because good relations between comrades-in-arms could mean the difference between life and death. It had absolutely nothing to do with her trepidation about mingling with normal fourteen-year-old girls. Really.

**Ikari S.:** I guess we could try. Rei is kind of difficult to get to know, though.

**Misa-chan313:** How hard could it be?

Misao had already forgotten how she'd had somewhat similar thoughts on Sensei's lectures.

* * *

"Okay, Ikari, spill," Toji demanded.

It was phys ed, and with the girls all at the pool and the guys all at the basketball court, Toji and Kensuke had decided it was safe enough to start interrogating Shinji with a number of questions they had about Misao, corning him on the sidelines.

"Spill what?" Shinji asked, though he had a fairly decent idea.

Toji sighed. "Why did NERV transfer Misato the moment Misao arrived?"

"It just doesn't make sense," Kensuke added. "She was doing a good job there, wasn't she?"

The duo might have been pleased at the new addition to class 2-A, but that didn't mean they were happy about the sudden disappearance of Misato.

"Yeah, I guess so," Shinji answered. "Um, you see, they transferred Misato _because_ of Misao."

"Huh?" Toji and Kensuke asked in unison.

"Yeah," Shinji said, suddenly feeling very nervous about screwing up the story and accidentally revealing everything. "Misato and I were the ones to pick Misao up from the train station, and they started bickering like crazy the instant they were within ten feet of each other. I'd never seen anything like it before! It was pretty obvious to the Commander that having Misao pilot under Misato's command couldn't work…"

He said all of this very quickly, but fortunately, Toji and Kensuke didn't seem to notice his nervousness.

"So they transferred Misato?" Toji demanded, full of righteous indignation on behalf of his crush.

Shinji nodded. "EVA pilots are extremely hard to come by, I'm told. Only one in several million, maybe even a billion, can do it. Military officers are easier to find," he explained. "I didn't think it was fair either, but I'm just a pilot. I don't call the shots."

Toji and Kensuke glanced up at the swimming area, catching a look at Misao, her wet bathing suit clinging to her. Shinji could clearly see their loyalty to Misato warring with certain, more primal urges on their faces.

"It's strange, really," Shinji commented. "That they fight like that, I mean. They're so much alike."

"I'll say," Kensuke said appreciatively, still looking at Misao. "Well, I guess even you can't be lucky enough to live with _two_ Katsuragi babes, Ikari."

Toji chuckled. "The excess hotness would probably kill him."

Shinji briefly imagined what it would be like if Misato and Misao really _were_ two different people, both living with him, working with him, continually teasing him…

"You're right," Shinji agreed with a sigh. "It probably would kill me."

"So!" Toji said cheerfully, deciding to change the subject. "Have you seen her panties yet?"

"What?!" Shinji exploded, drawing the attention of numerous other students.

He blushed and took a sudden interest in studying his shoes, silently pondering the cosmic injustice of him getting embarrassed because Toji had to say something perverted.

* * *

Rei Ayanami's usual table was actually prime real estate so far as the schoolyard went. Situated under a nice, leafy tree that shaded the table's occupants from the noonday sun, it was once a safe bet that it would be packed to capacity during lunch.

Then Rei was enrolled in the school and began to sit there, and the girl's innate oddness drove away anyone else who wanted the spot and ensured that she was left alone as she ate. Until now, at least.

"Hello, Rei, do you mind if we sit with you?" Misao asked cheerfully at the start of the lunch period.

Shinji, walking with Misao, started slightly, amazed at the sheer brashness of simply asking the enigmatic First Child if they could eat with her. He knew that she wanted to try and make friends, but this seemed rather aggressive to him.

Rei seemed to ponder the request for a few seconds before finally answering in her usual soft voice, "That would be acceptable."

"Great!" Misao said, plopping down in the seat next to Rei.

Shinji more cautiously sat down opposite Misao, taking out two bento boxes and handing one to his purple haired companion.

"So, Rei, how are you doing?" Misao asked.

"My recovery is proceeding according to schedule," Rei answered, not taking her attention off her rather bland looking lunch of rice and bean sprouts.

"That's good," Misao said. Shinji nodded agreement.

A somewhat uncomfortable silence fell, neither Shinji nor Misao able to think up a decent conversation starter.

Toji and Kensuke approached and saw who Shinji and Misao were sitting with. The two boys seemed to silently debate with each other over whether further contact with Misao was worth braving the discomfort that Ayanami seemed to project for a few seconds.

Their hasty withdrawal to another table seemed to signal quite clearly that they'd decided discretion to be the better part of valor, at least for the time being.

_Thanks, guys,_ Shinji thought with a small sigh, silently cursing how awkward he got around Rei. _But then again, there's only three people whose presence doesn't make me feel at least a little awkward: me, myself, and I._

Despite several attempts by Misao to start a conversation, and even a few from Shinji, the rest of the lunch period was a mostly silent affair.

* * *

"I never quite realized how…strange Rei Ayanami is," Misao commented later that afternoon as they walked toward a Geofront access building.

"Really? But I thought you were her commanding officer before the, uh, incident," Shinji said.

"Technically, I was," Misao said. "But I didn't arrive until after she was injured, so she wasn't on the combat roster while I was the Operations Director. I never really had a lot of contact with her."

Part of Shinji wondered why Misato had never bothered to try and get to know the only pilot she'd had under her command at the time, but he mostly understood. Rei was a little like his father, in that they both seemed to project a certain aura. Just by being in a room, Gendo Ikari could make everyone around him feel timid and small. Rei, on the other hand, just made people feel awkward and uncomfortable, but that was still enough to make it hard to want to get to know her.

"So, you know where you're supposed to go to turn in your gun?" Shinji asked, deciding to change the subject.

"Yeah," Misao said, patting her backpack. "Thanks for coming with me back to the apartment to get it. I thought about bringing it to school with me, but I was too afraid someone would find it, and I'd get arrested and expelled."

"If I were in your position, already having graduated from college and everything, I might try to get expelled so I wouldn't have to go through school all over again," Shinji lied.

Misao smirked. "Unfortunately, when they changed my identity, I effectively lost my degree. If not for that old windbag of a teacher we have to put up with, I don't think I'd really mind it," she said, telling herself she was just stretching the truth a bit. "It's a chance to try one of the roads not taken, you know? Maybe I'll become a teacher this time around…"

Shinji sweat dropped. "Somehow, I just can't picture that, Misao," he commented.

"Hey! I'd make a great teacher!" she exclaimed in mock anger. "Way better than the guy they've got teaching us!"

"Well, yeah, I'll give you that," Shinji said, keeping to himself his opinion that just about anyone would be a better teacher than their current sensei.

The two entered NERV HQ together, and after a quick stop to turn in Misao's Heckler & Koch, reported to Ritsuko for their training.

"Hiya, Rits!" Misao said as they strode into the blond scientist's lab.

"Hello, Doctor Akagi," Shinji added.

"Afternoon, Shinji. Misato," she said absently, picking up a clipboard and studying it for a moment.

"You should really start calling me Misao, Ritsuko," Misao said. "You'll blow my cover if you keep calling me by the name of my 'cousin.'"

"You're right, Misao. It'll take a while to get used to, though," Ritsuko said, looking away from the clipboard and giving the pilots her full attention. "All right, here's the agenda for today. Misao, we're going to take your measurements for your plug suit, and then you're going to do a harmonics test in one of Rei's suits again while we make yours. Shinji, you'll be doing combat simulations in Unit One. Maya will supervise them."

"Right," Shinji and Misao said.

"By the way, Rits, has the Commander decided to make Maya the new Director or not?" Misao asked.

"He hasn't said anything yet," Ritsuko said. "It's only been a few days, after all. NERV can survive that long without an Operations Director. Now get to the locker rooms, you two. The sooner this is done, the sooner you can go home."

* * *

Three hours later, Misao emerged from the Unit One test plug, finding the process of expelling the LCL from her lungs no more pleasant than the last time she'd had to do it.

_Ugh, I wonder how long it takes to get used to this,_ she thought, coughing as she stumbled into the hallway behind the harmonics testing chamber.

"And most people probably think that piloting EVA is glamorous," Ritsuko commented, approaching Misao.

"Most people are idiots," Misao grumbled.

"Very true," Ritsuko said wryly. "Your sync ratio is up one point since your last test. Not bad, considering that was only two days ago. Also, your new plug suit is finished."

"That's a relief," Misao said.

Rei's fit her well enough, but it was bit too tight around the bust and hips. It was a minor annoyance until you were forced to wear the vacuum sealed garment for hours and hours at a time, with nothing to occupy your mind and distract you from the discomfort.

"I've left one in the locker room for you to try on after you've showered," Ritsuko said.

"Thanks," Misao said. "Hey, out of curiosity, why did you send me into the test plug and Shinji into combat simulations? I mean, I don't even know how to make EVA move yet."

"Shinji's not much more experienced than you are, and both his victories against the Angels were the result of the EVA going berserk, not his own skill," Ritsuko answered. "We can't depend upon berserker mode to win this war for us, and he is Unit One's primary pilot. We need to get him up to speed first."

That made sense, Misao conceded, wondering why she hadn't thought of it before. "All right, I'm going to hit the showers," she said. "Back in a few."

She retreated into the lady's locker room, which was effectively all hers, since Rei obviously wouldn't be showing up and the Second Child was still in Germany. Her new suit was sitting on a bench for her, neatly folded and wrapped in clear plastic.

Misao ignored it for the moment, peeling off Rei's suit and heading into one of the shower stalls, turning on the water.

_I don't get it,_ Misao thought as she absently scrubbed the LCL out of her hair and off her skin. _I was all surprised that they aren't treating me like Unit One's primary pilot instead of the backup. Why? Shinji does have the higher sync ratio, after all._

Yet from her—perhaps biased—viewpoint, that was really the only thing the boy had over her as pilot. He was a child, she was a professional soldier. He hated doing it, she wanted a piece of the Angels.

_So which reason makes me want to replace him as primary pilot so much? _She wondered. _Is it because I want to protect him? Or because I want revenge against the Angels? Does it even make a difference? The end result is the same, after all. I get to pilot, and he doesn't have to anymore. We both win._

Misao absently ran her fingers along her torso as she pondered, only to find the familiar feel of scar tissue conspicuously absent. The transformation she'd undergone had erased it, leaving her body unmarred as well as considerably younger, and she hadn't yet adjusted to the former change any more than she had to the latter.

_This whole thing is crazy!_ A part of her mind suddenly shrieked, and Misao shook her head, running a hand through her damp hair. She had spent much of the past few days wondering when the reality of what had happened to her would really sink in and cause her to go into full scale hysterics.

Of course, that hadn't happened yet, so she assumed it wasn't going to. Misao wasn't quite sure why; even after having had a front row seat to Second Impact and having, until recently, commanded giant biomechanical war machines against huge monsters, this still ranked pretty damn high on her insanity scale. After all, she'd woken up in a teenager's body, with the scar that had become a part of her vanished.

_Only the physical scar's gone,_ she thought darkly, fingering her cross pendant. _The ones you can't see are still very much present._

Maybe, she mused, maybe if she could become Unit One's primary pilot, she could finally have her revenge, put her father's memory to rest, and erase the unseen scars Second Impact had left on her as well.

A small part of her wondered if even destroying the Angels herself would satisfy her; the First Battle of Tokyo-3 had brought her none of the fulfillment that she had expected, after all.

Misao sighed. This was getting her nowhere; she was just wasting time and water. She finished her shower, then got out and dried herself off with a fluffy towel, finally picking up the new plug suit.

* * *

"Well, Rits, I have to admit that I'm impressed," Misao said, emerging from the lady's locker room, clad in her new suit. "Especially considering that it's a rush job."

"I'm glad you approve," Ritsuko said in a rather dry tone. "We took the design from the First Child's plug suit and changed the colors and measurements."

Shinji chose this moment to turn a corner and appear, completed with his own training for the day and on his way to the men's locker room. He stopped short when he saw Misao in her new suit.

She noticed. "Hey, Shinji-kun. What do you think?" she asked, gracefully spinning around in place to give him the full look.

Shinji's brain just jammed, locking up for several seconds. While Misao's suit was clearly designed differently from his own, it had exactly the same white, blue, and black color scheme as his. A "01" just above her breasts had replaced the double zero of Rei's suit.

The clear resemblance to his own suit triggered that odd possessive feeling he'd experienced when she'd had to wear his clothing, only it was stronger this time. And the fact that the suit was skin tight caused a stirring of feelings that were rather more base than simple possessiveness.

"I think he likes it," Misao said, giggling at his stunned look.

"Are you going to do this to him every time he sees you in a plug suit?" Akagi asked with a huff.

"Maybe," Misao replied in a singsong voice.

Akagi responded by scowling at Misao. "Shinji, go ahead and shower and change," she said. "Misato, since you seem to have no complaints about your suit, you can change and then you're free to go."

* * *

"You are sure this is accurate?" Gendo asked, looking through the short report on his desk.

Akagi nodded. "Entirely. I've never known Maya to make mistakes with this sort of thing…but I triple-checked the readings to make sure she hadn't made some kind of error. And I think the footage of the Third Child's recent combat simulations that I sent to your terminal speaks for itself."

"Indeed, Doctor," Gendo commented. "What do you suppose caused such a radical change in such a short period of time?"

"Given that there's been only one new variable added to the equation recently, I would hypothesize that it has something to do with that," Akagi said, wondering why he was asking a question with such an obvious answer.

Gendo nodded slightly. "Very well, that will be all. You're dismissed."

Akagi nodded and strode out of the Commander's cavernous office, to her credit moving only a bit faster than she normally did.

The instant the door had shut behind her, Fuyutski finally broke his silence. "An eleven point jump in his sync ratio from two days ago and noted improvement in the combat simulations. Quite extraordinary."

"The Third Child is finally putting his heart into piloting," Gendo said. "The question is: why?"

"Katsuragi's designation as the Fourth Child and the backup pilot for Unit One would seem to be the obvious explanation," Fuyutski said, very aware that Gendo was far too bright to not realize that.

Gendo nodded. That was obvious to him, of course, but he needed to know all the details. He had hoped to manipulate Shinji, to make the Third Child pilot because he had wedded his very sense of self to Evangelion. NERV had successfully molded the Second Child in a similar manner, albeit doing so at a much slower pace than Gendo had planned to move at with the Third Child. That Shinji appeared to have latched onto a different motivation was unfortunate but ultimately acceptable, so long as Gendo was able to find the proper buttons to push in order to control his son.

"Yes, but why has the Fourth's designation motivated him so?" Gendo wondered aloud. "Is he trying to protect the Fourth, or his status as the designated pilot of Unit One?"

Fuyutski frowned. That Shinji would fight to protect a position he'd been blackmailed into accepting seemed unlikely on the face of it, but he knew that EVA was a complicated issue for Shinji, to say the least. Besides, he had known the Fourth for little more than two weeks. It seemed at least equally unlikely that he'd be so motivated to protect someone he barely knew yet.

"Do we really need to bother with such details?" the Vice Commander asked at last. "What does it matter, so long as the Third Child's piloting skills improve? Unless you're actually taking an interest in your son's life simply because he's your son."

Gendo's lips curled into a small, sinister smirk in response. "People are like machines in many ways, Professor," he commented. "One can get much more use out of them if one knows what exactly makes them tick."

* * *

Author's Notes: Whee, fan service, as promised, with a small side of angst. In the rough draft of this chapter, Shinji took _way_ too much amusement out of watching Misao take her lumps as she got used to being a teenager. I'm not sure how that happened, but I turned it down several notches, since it's both OOC for Shinji and it wouldn't exactly help me steer the plot of this where I wanted.

Until recently, Misao's plug suit was going to be a recolored version of Asuka's. However, Fifth Horseman directed me to a picture of Misato in Rei's suit on EvaMade, which I liked so much I decided to alter Misao's suit in this fic.

Anyway, next chapter will see the arrival of the Fifth Angel, and the first test of Shinji's newfound resolve. Some of the battles in this fic will go quite similarly to how they went in canon NGE, so I may gloss over them, but this won't be one of them. Of course, some battles will be pivotal to the plot and very different from how they went in the anime.

James Axelrad, I can understand why you felt that the age regression should have been instantaneous. However, since I would be pushing deep into pseudoscience territory either way, I figured I may as well have it be a delayed reaction and keep the scene where she wakes up next morning and wonders why her clothes are so big, which I really liked.

Invincible Shinji, one of the reasons I started this so early in the timeline was so that I wouldn't need to rapidly accelerate Shinji and Misao's relationship by having him save her from being raped by Kaji. Which isn't to say Kaji will enjoy this fic, but, well, just keep reading to find out what happens with him.

Gunman, I'm glad I have your approval. I might have had Toji and Kensuke starting to lose it in that cell, but they were only in there for four hours. Seems a little soon for temporary insanity to kick in.

Fifth Horseman, I probably should have had Misato freak out more in the beginning. I may go back and revise the second chapter one of these days, since I myself usually don't like it when characters in fanfics have something crazy happen to them and then just take it in stride. By the way, thanks again for directing me to that picture.

Thanks to all my readers and reviewers.

* * *

Omakes

Cosplay Craziness

Misao smiled as she examined the ninja outfit she wore in the mirror. It didn't really allow her to show off her "best assets" but the nearly nonexistent pants legs on it did display her thighs quite nicely.

Smirking wickedly at her reflection, Misao then crept out of her room, her "weapons" in hand. The Fourth Child came to the entrance of her kitchen, finding Shinji working on dinner at the stove. His back was conveniently turned toward her.

"_Hiya!_" Misao exclaimed, jumping out into the kitchen.

A very surprised Shinji spun around to look at her, and Misao flung several plastic kunai at her fellow pilot, all of which missed him by a wide margin. Pen-Pen just fled to the safety of his fridge, squawking loudly.

"I am Misao Katsuragi, Okashira of the Oniwaban Group!" the Fourth Child proclaimed. "I am a master kunochi!"

Shinji just stood and stared at her for a long moment, blinking stupidly.

Finally, he spoke. "Oro?"

(A/N: Yes, I know I did the whole Shinji-as-Kenshin joke in "Spirit" but come on! I have a character named Misao here!)

* * *

Overly Aggressive? Nah!

Toji and Kensuke had spent most of the walk to the Katsuragi apartment arguing over which of them was more likely to get Misato, but for all their bravado, even they knew that their odds of getting anywhere with a woman who was twice their age were slim to none.

Misao, therefore, presented them with a very interesting opportunity.

"Nice to meet you, too!" they exclaimed, louder than was strictly necessary, as they both bowed deeply to Misao in perfect unison.

Shinji was abruptly gripped by such incredible jealousy that he found himself acting without realizing it.

"Back off, you two!" he roared, punching the two other boys as hard as he could. "She's _mine_!"

Toji and Kensuke collapsed to the ground and didn't get up, both of them knocked unconscious. And, quick as it came, Shinji's moment of blinding envy passed. The Third Child looked down at the other boys, feeling horrified at himself.

"Oh my god…" Misao breathed.

If possible, Shinji suddenly felt even more ashamed. Misao must think he was a monster.

"…that's so hot," she finished.

"Nani?!" Shinji exclaimed.

Misao didn't respond, not with words anyway. Instead, she shoved the slumbering forms of Toji and Kensuke completely out of her apartment, then grabbed Shinji and pulled him completely _into_ her home, shutting the door.

And that was how Misao Katsuragi ended up missing her first day of school.

* * *

Military Training

"Stand! Bow! Sit!" Hikari shouted.

Misao's military training took over and she responded to the class rep's tone of command without thinking. The Fourth Child sprang to attention and shouted, "Sir! Yes, _sir_!" at the top of her lungs.

All the other students turned to look at her like she was insane…all except for Hikari, anyway. The pig tailed girl grinned.

"You know, I kind of liked that," the class rep commented. "From now on, I want everybody to do as Katsuragi-san did in the mornings, and if I feel you weren't enthusiastic enough, you'll have to drop and give me twenty!"

Everyone turned to glare at Misao, who grinned weakly and tried unsuccessfully to curl up into herself and disappear.

A few minutes later, Sensei began his usual lecture, and Shinji sent her a private message.

**Ikari S.:** Okay, here's the plan: once the lunch period comes, we announce there's an Angel attacking, then run away VERY fast before anyone realizes nobody called either of us.

**Misa-chan313:** Do you really think that's necessary?

Shinji glanced at one of the more delinquent students from the corner of his eye, seeing that she was sharpening a small but wicked looking knife.

**Ikari S.:** Just…trust me on this, okay Misao?


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

Chapter Four: **The First Child/Trial**

"I'm glad you were able to come over tonight, Rits," Misao commented. "It's been too long since we spent some time together."

"Well, as your guardian, I probably should spend _some_ time around here, after all," Ritsuko joked, prompting a smirk from Misao.

It was a Friday evening, and Misao had invited their guardian de jure over for dinner, judging that it was too long since she had spent any time with her best friend outside of work. The two women sat across from each other at the dining room table. Shinji could be heard bustling around in the kitchen as he finished preparing the evening meal.

"So, you've made it through almost a whole week as a teenager," Ritsuko said. "How are you holding up, Misao?"

Misao sighed. "It's been rough, Ritsuko. I can't drink, and I can't drive my car, though I _did_ finally find a good place to store it. But homework is almost as bad as the paperwork I used to have to do!"

Ritsuko smirked. "Even worse than the flood of paperwork you had to deal with after the Third Angel?"

Misao grimaced at the memory of it. "Okay, maybe not _that_ bad, but still, it's a pain," she said. "Speaking of that, who got stuck with all the paperwork from the Second Battle of Tokyo-3?"

Ritsuko grinned. "The Vice Commander. Rumor has it that he's been hassling the Commander to name your replacement as much as he dares. Though that probably isn't much."

Misao let out a snort of laughter, picturing the gruff Vice Commander constantly harassing the steely Commander because he didn't want to sit around filling out and signing forms in triplicate.

"It's kind of unlike the Commander to leave an important position empty for so long, though, isn't it?" Misao asked after she'd calmed down.

Ritsuko nodded. "Yes, but the Commander's been distracted lately. He's been speaking with the Committee a lot recently, though I have no idea about what."

"I can take a guess," Misao muttered.

Before Ritsuko could make a reply to that, Shinji emerged from the kitchen, balancing several plates of steaming food. The two ladies quickly got up to give him a hand before he dropped their dinner all over the floor and everything was soon spread out on the table.

"Mmm," Ritsuko sniffed appreciatively, before turning to smirk at Misao. "I'm glad you decided to invite me over on one of Shinji's nights to cook."

"It's always my night to cook, Akagi-san," Shinji replied quietly, feeling embarrassed by the implied compliment.

Misao nodded. "Since I was effectively ordered to stop eating my instant food," she began, tossing a glare at her friend to let her know she was still _not_ forgiven for that crime, "Shinji and I have rearranged our chore schedule. He's taken over all the cooking, and I took a bit more of the cleaning."

"And yet the place isn't a landfill," Ritsuko observed with a grin. "So, Shinji, I guess you can't stand living in a dump and have been doing her chores, too."

"Hey! That's not true!" Misao snapped, indignant. "I've been doing all my chores!"

"You? You've been cleaning?" Ritsuko asked, genuinely shocked.

"You don't have to sound so surprised," Misao said, scowling.

In truth, though, Misao herself was rather surprised at her own actions, knowing how reluctant she tended to be when it came to cleaning. She supposed that she'd been…grateful to Shinji, grateful enough that she'd overcome her laziness for at least a while, no small feat for her. He had been a big help from practically the moment she'd woken up that day and found that her NERV uniform had become several sizes too large, aiding her in adapting to her new circumstances. She hadn't expected so much support from the usually sullen and introverted young man.

So she'd cleaned the apartment when she was supposed to, all too aware that Shinji's neat freak tendencies wouldn't allow him to leave the task neglected, and that he was too meek to berate her into doing it, which would thus lead to him doing it himself if she didn't.

_Besides, it's not like I've been so incredibly busy,_ Misao thought with a trace of bitterness.

The sudden spike in Shinji's performance had caused NERV to focus its attentions to training the Third Child. And since he and Misao were pilots for the same EVA, this interrupted her training regimen. Only one of them could be doing combat simulations in the EVA at a time, and the second test plug for Unit One had yet to be constructed. Since there was little point in doing harmonics tests every day, Misao was often just told to go home while Shinji trained in Unit One.

Misao had been utterly flabbergasted on Monday when, after their training sessions, Ritsuko and Maya had told her that not only had Shinji's sync ratio jumped by 11 points, but the Third Child had gone three for three in simulated combat against the Fourth Angel. The gap had only widened as the week had gone on, too. The harmonics tests they'd done just earlier that day showed that Misao's sync ratio now trailed Shinji's by over 20 percentage points.

A week ago, these developments would have thrilled her, but today they annoyed her despite herself. When she'd first become the Fourth Child, she'd assumed it was just a matter of time before she became Unit One's primary pilot, but now she was starting to wonder if she'd be piloting anything besides a bench in this war.

Part of her wanted to talk to Shinji about it, but what was she supposed to say?

_"Stop trying so damn hard to save the world and every person in it, you selfish jerk. I want a turn!"_ _Yeah, that would work real well,_ she thought. _I wonder why Shinji-kun's suddenly doing so well. He hates EVA. He would never fight to remain a pilot, but I have no idea what else it could be…_

"Misao!" Ritsuko shouted.

She started, turning her attention back to the world outside her own mind. "Sorry, Rits, I was lost in thought," she said sheepishly.

"I guessed," Ritsuko noted. "I asked you how you two were getting along with Rei at school."

Misao shrugged. "All right, I suppose. We eat with her at lunch, but we don't talk. Rei's just so…quiet."

Ritsuko nodded. "Rei's a nice girl but she's not very adept at…living," she said. Then her eyes widened slightly. "Oh! Speaking of Rei, I don't suppose you could give her something for me on your way to headquarters tomorrow?"

"Sure, what is it?" Misao asked as Ritsuko rooted through her purse.

Ritsuko produced a plastic card and handed it to Misao. "It's Rei's new security pass. I keep forgetting to give it to her, and her old one will stop working tomorrow."

"All right," Misao said. "We'll stop by her apartment on our way to headquarters tomorrow morning."

* * *

"We're going to be late, Misao!" Shinji called, which was becoming as much a part of his morning routine as brushing his teeth or feeding Pen-Pen.

"I'm moving as fast as I can! Hold your horses!" Misao's voice shouted back from the bathroom.

He shook his head slightly and sighed a bit. Misao had been surprisingly good about cleaning up when she was supposed to, something he noticed and appreciated, but getting her moving in the mornings without a beer…

Shinji might as well try and get Rei to start break dancing.

Misao suddenly burst out of the bathroom, clad in only a fluffy white towel, with another one wrapped around her hair. Totally heedless of the way Shinji was stupidly gaping at her, she made the short trip to her room and shut the screen behind her.

The toaster popped, jarring Shinji out of his stupor. He sighed again as he took the toast out and began to butter it.

_You'd think I'd become inured to this sort of thing eventually, _he mused, while trying to concentrate on un-sexy thoughts to calm himself down.

He thought he was doing a rather good job of it until Misao again emerged, this time wearing a pair of gray shorts and a violet tank top.

"There, all ready," she said, somehow sounding both cheerful and mildly annoyed at once and snatching a slice of toast from his suddenly numb fingers. "Come on, Shinji-kun, let's go, or we'll miss catching Rei before she leaves for headquarters."

"Uh, yeah," he said, grabbing the other slice of toast he'd prepared and following her out the door. "Do you know where Rei lives?"

"Her address is on her card," Misao said, brandishing the piece of plastic in question. "We should be able to find it without much trouble."

The two stepped out of the apartment building and began their trek toward Rei's home. It was unusually cool out in Tokyo-3, making it feel like a pleasant spring day instead of part of the blazing, perpetual summer that had claimed the area ever since Second Impact. Both Shinji and Misao silently wished that they didn't have to go into NERV that day.

The two made small talk as they walked, most of it concerning the Unit Zero reactivation experiment that was scheduled for later that day. Shinji suddenly noticed their route was taking them into one of the older, more run down areas of the city. Probably a slum left over from when Tokyo-3 had been Hakone.

"Misao, are you sure this is the right place?" he asked slowly.

She frowned. "This is the name of the street that's on Rei's card," she said, clearly not quite able to believe that NERV would house an EVA pilot in such a place any more than Shinji was.

They reached Rei's apartment building and, both deciding that the elevator didn't look very trustworthy, climbed the stairs to the First Child's floor. Misao was aghast to note that one of the steps had a used hypodermic needle sitting discarded upon it, doubtlessly left there by some drug addict.

"This has to be a mistake on her card," Misao said. "Rei can't live here."

Yet a minute later they were standing in front of a door that had a nameplate clearly reading "Rei Ayanami" above it. Shinji and Misao silently traded a glance, then Shinji reached out and pressed the button for the doorbell, not very surprised to find it broken.

Misao knocked on the door, but there was no response from inside.

"Think she already left for NERV?" Shinji asked.

Misao shook her head. "I only delayed us by a few minutes," she said thoughtfully. "I wonder…"

She placed her hand on the doorknob and turned, finding it open. The two pilots exchanged a glance.

"Who lives in an area like this and doesn't lock their door?" Shinji asked, quietly incredulous.

"Apparently, Rei Ayanami," Misao said, gesturing for Shinji to follow her inside.

Once across the threshold, Misao couldn't help but be taken aback at how…grimy the place looked. Granted, she knew that she of all people didn't have room to criticize other people's cleaning habits, or lack thereof, but Rei's apartment left even her appalled.

"How can she live like this?" Shinji asked softly.

"I don't know," Misao replied in kind.

Used bandages, empty prescription bottles, soiled clothes, and other bits of trash and clutter were everywhere. The walls hadn't been wallpapered or painted, and were merely naked sheets of drywall, several of which had ugly stains on them. The floor looked like it hadn't ever been scrubbed, and a dank, unpleasant smell hovered in the air.

_It smells like…apathy,_ Misao said, suddenly realizing why the state of Rei's apartment was able to disgust even a slob like her.

Prior to Shinji moving in with her, her place had been a total wreck, but it had been that way because she was simply too lazy to clean it up and preferred knocking back a few brews to even thinking about housework. It wasn't that she didn't want to live in a clean apartment, just that she wanted to avoid the trouble of cleaning it up more.

Rei, however, was anything but lazy according to every testimony Misao had ever heard. The girl was reputed to have undergone fourteen hour long training simulations without the slightest complaint, and Misao knew Rei always had top marks in school. If Rei didn't bother to clean her apartment, it was the result of just not caring about her living conditions, not simple laziness.

"Rei?" Misao called.

The girl in question emerged from the apartment's only other room, wearing her school uniform despite the fact that there was no school that day. Her blue hair was slightly damp, making Misao think the First Child had just finished a shower. In one hand she held what appeared to be a carrying case for eyeglasses, which was strange because Misao happened to know that the First Child had perfect vision.

"Yes, Pilot Katsuragi?" Rei responded in her usual, quiet voice.

Misao was briefly stunned into silence by the blatant indifference Rei was displaying. She and Shinji had just walked into her home like they owned the place, and Rei didn't even ask why they were here.

"Um, we're here to give you your new security card," she blurted out at last, offering the card to Rei.

"I see," Rei said, accepting the card.

The First Child then silently left her apartment, heedless of the fact that Shinji and Misao were still in it. They easily could have stolen or destroyed anything in the place, but Rei didn't seem to care. Misao wondered if Rei possessed anything that she would care about losing.

Shinji just shrugged and went to follow her, with Misao following him a moment later. The two jogged slightly to catch up with Rei, who was already outside and on her way to NERV HQ.

"Rei, why do you live there?" Misao asked once they'd caught up.

"It is the apartment I was assigned to," Rei answered.

Misao blinked. That was not the answer she'd expected. "Who assigned you to that place?" she asked, ready to chew out whatever idiot in NERV's HR department decided to save a few yen by putting the First Child in such a sty.

"Commander Ikari," Rei answered.

The sound of tires screeching filled Misao's mind as she put the brakes on her plan.

_Why would the Commander put Rei in such a place?! I thought he liked her!_ She thought, recalling one incident when she'd seen Rei and Gendo talking with each other and actually smiling.

Misao shook her head, deciding that the why of it wasn't important. "Listen, Rei, I've got an empty bedroom at my place. Why don't you move in with us? I'm sure Shinji won't mind. Right, Shinji-kun?"

"Huh? Oh! No, I wouldn't mind at all," Shinji assured her, looking somewhat surprised at getting pulled into the conversation.

"What purpose would such a move serve?" Rei asked, looking slightly confused.

"It would get you out of a dump that's in the middle of a slum!" Misao exclaimed.

Rei finally turned to look at Misao, and her red eyes flashed. It could only be described as a major show of emotion compared to the First Child's normal expression, but Misao couldn't help but cringe slightly. She had a strong feeling she'd offended her fellow pilot, and Rei was surprisingly scary when annoyed.

Rei gave abruptly turned her attention back to the path in front of her, freeing the Fourth Child from her crimson gaze.

Misao sighed. "So, how are you feeling about the Unit Zero reactivation today?"

"I have prepared for it to the best of my ability," Rei answered.

_That doesn't answer my question,_ Misao thought. She glanced at Shinji, hoping he would step up and try to engage Rei, but he wore a pensive expression and clearly wasn't going to try and join in the meager conversation.

She shook her head slightly and continued along in silence.

* * *

_Rei seems totally unafraid of getting back into Unit Zero, despite what it did to her last time she was in it,_ Shinji thought as the trio of pilots descended a seemingly endless escalator into the Geofront. _I wonder how she can be like that? I'm still scared of piloting EVA, even though I have a reason to do it now._

They finally reached the bottom of the escalator. Rei headed in the direction of the girl's locker room, while Shinji began to head toward the testing chamber where Unit Zero was located. Misao, however, paused for a moment.

"Good luck, Rei!" she called cheerfully.

Shinji started, suddenly wondering why he hadn't thought to say something similar and feeling like an idiot. "Yeah," he added with a smile, squelching his annoyance at himself for the moment. "Good luck, Rei."

Rei gave them a vaguely surprised looking stare for a moment before she nodded, turned, and continued on her way. Shinji and Misao traded a glance before they, too, went on their way.

"That girl seems to get stranger ever day," Misao said softly as soon as they were safely out of earshot.

"Yeah," Shinji agreed.

Shinji Ikari didn't claim to understand most people, but Rei Ayanami was definitely a whole different level of confusing. She just seemed so blank most of the time, so empty. He wondered if EVA had done that to her and shivered.

_Still, better me than Misao, if that's true,_ he thought, glancing at the Fourth Child from the corner of his eye. _She's got a lot more to lose to EVA than I do._

Then again, he mused, Rei's total indifference did seem to have the benefit of making her utterly fearless, even of something as terrifying as piloting EVA. Shinji couldn't help but be intrigued by that. After all, swearing to himself to pilot EVA to keep Misao out of it as much as possible was one thing, but actually doing it was quite another. He'd take any hint he could find.

_But fear is a very instinctual thing. Just trying to go all 'blank' like Rei might eliminate stuff like happiness and sadness, but fear? That would be almost like trying to train yourself not to feel hungry when your stomach's empty,_ he thought.

"Hey!"

Shinji jumped. "What?"

"You know you really need to stop spacing out like that, Shinji-kun," Misao chided. "It's unbecoming of a young man."

"Sorry," Shinji said, mustering an apologetic grin.

"Don't worry about it," Misao said, cheerful again. Her smile suddenly became sheepish. "I asked you if you knew the way to the test chamber."

Shinji's grin widened, even as he rolled his eyes. "Yeah, it's this way."

* * *

"We will now begin the Unit Zero reactivation experiment," Commander Ikari stated to the test chamber control room. "Begin primary connection."

Shinji and Misao stood off to the side, out of the way as the technicians ran through the start up checklist. The two peered through a small window at the armored, orange colossus that was Unit Zero. They were both slightly nervous, having heard about how the first time NERV had tried this, the EVA had gone berserk and started trying to attack the control room. But after all, she was their…

Friend?

Well, maybe 'friend' was too strong a word as yet. But they had been eating lunch with her for several days now, and besides, as Misao had once said during one of these awkward meals, the EVA pilots had to stick together.

"Approaching the absolute borderline!" Maya called. "Two point five more, two point zero, one point eight, one point three, one point one, zero point seven, zero point one…"

Shinji and Misao both held their breath. This was it, if Unit Zero was going to go berserk again, it was going to do it when Rei's sync ratio passed the critical point.

"Absolute borderline!" Maya called.

Unit Zero didn't move. Except for the words "EVA 00 prototype" lighting up on its arms, the giant might well still be asleep for all anyone could tell by looking at it. Shinji and Misao both let out a relieved sigh.

"One point zero and rising!" Maya called. "Unit Zero has been successfully reactivated."

"Roger," Rei replied, her usual, soft voice coming from a pair of speakers in the control room. If she had been afraid, it was impossible to tell. "Beginning interlock tests."

One of the phones in the control room suddenly rang, and the Vice Commander quickly picked it up. He listened briefly to the person on the other end before saying, "I understand," and hanging up.

"Ikari," Fuyutski said. "An unidentified object is rapidly approaching NERV Central! It may be the Fifth Angel!"

Gendo gave no outward signs of surprise beyond straightening slightly. "Abort the test. Place all operations on first stage alert."

Fuyutski's eyes narrowed. "You're not going to use Unit Zero, are you?" he asked, despite already knowing the answer. Any paternal warmth Gendo Ikari might feel was directed solely at Rei Ayanami. He would gladly throw his own son into the line of fire to protect her.

"She's not ready to fight yet," Gendo answered. "Unit One's status?"

"It can be ready in 380 seconds," Akagi answered.

"Make it so," Gendo ordered. "Lieutenant Ibuki!"

Maya allowed herself to cringe before she spun her chair around to face her commanding officer. "Sir?"

"I am promoting you to the rank of captain, effective immediately," Gendo said. "From this point on, you are NERV Central's Director of Operations."

"Yes, sir," Maya acknowledged.

_Damn it, why did I let myself be bullied into taking command training back at the academy?_ She wondered to herself.

* * *

A few minutes later, Misao and Rei stood side by side on one of the catwalks inside Cage Seven as the NERV technicians ran down the checklist in preparation to launch Unit One. Rei hadn't changed out of her plug suit, while Misao had donned hers. There was utterly no reason for her to be in it, as Shinji was about to sortie in the only EVA she could achieve a decent sync ratio with, but the current regulations demanded all active pilots suit up during a first stage alert.

But even if Misao's experience in the military hadn't taught her that it was usually better to just go along with SOP—no matter how asinine it might be—rather than complain about it, she wouldn't have said anything about it. Her attention was focused entirely on Unit One.

She'd thought that being designated the Fourth Child would allow her to take the sensitive boy's place in combat, but that hadn't been the case. And she didn't even have the control over the battle that she'd had as Operations Director.

"I hope he doesn't get hurt," Misao said softly.

"Yes."

Misao blinked, turning to look at Rei. The First Child wore her usual impassive expression, and that hadn't exactly been the most wholehearted agreement Misao had ever heard. Still…

_Maybe there's hope for the Ice Queen of NERV yet,_ she thought with a small smile.

The sound of the huge lock bolts pulling back from Unit 01 caused Misao to turn her attention back to the EVA. A few more restraints on the violet titan were removed before the machine was sent rocketing toward the surface with a burst of electromagnetic energy.

_Good luck, Shinji,_ Misao thought.

Luck, however, was not to be on Shinji Ikari's side this day.

* * *

"We're detecting a high energy reaction inside the target!" Aoba exclaimed.

Maya, who was stuck pulling double duty until a replacement could be found for her previous post, nearly gave into panic right there. "What?!"

"The energy charge is accelerating and massing upon itself!" Aoba continued in a frantic tone.

"It can't be!" Ritsuko exclaimed.

On the surface, a massive door in the ground opened up, and the figure of Unit One rose to face the Angel, the inertia snapping its head up as the EVA lift reached the top, giving the illusion of the beast awakening.

It was at ground level for exactly three seconds before the Fifth Angel fired a beam of blinding light out at it. The blast tore through an unarmored building between EVA and Angel, not even slowing down as it did so, before slamming right into Unit One's chest.

Shinji screamed helplessly as the beam bore into Unit One's ultra dense armor, feeling the same intense agony in his chest that his EVA was going through, even as he also experienced the pain of being submerged in suddenly boiling LCL.

"Retrieve the EVA!" Ritsuko barked. "Now!"

The enormous EVA lift pulled back into the ground, bringing Unit One back to safety. The Angel kept its attack trained on the EVA's chest the entire time it was descending back below ground, until it was only shooting at the street. Then the beam abruptly died, the building it had been firing through collapsing into a pathetic mass of melted metal and glass as it did.

"The target has gone silent!" Aoba exclaimed.

"What's the pilot's status?" Maya demanded.

"He's alive," answered Makoto. "But his brain waves are extremely erratic. Cardiac readings are very weak!"

"Increase power to life support systems!" Akagi ordered. "Give him a heart massage!"

"Roger!"

Inside the plug, Shinji's body jerked as his plug suit sent a jolt of electricity into his chest.

"Heartbeat stabilized!" Makoto said.

"Force eject the entry plug!" Akagi ordered. "Emergency LCL discharge!"

"Roger!" Maya responded, totally forgetting for the moment that she was in command as her fingers danced across her keyboard.

Maya brought an image of Cage Seven up on the main screen, watching as Shinji's command chair was removed from the entry plug by a robotic arm and brought over to a catwalk. Misao was waiting for him there, along with a number of paramedics. The girl must have sprinted to have gotten there so quickly.

The new Operations Director allowed herself a small sigh. _Okay, now what?_

* * *

_A few hours later…_

The colonel in charge of the JSSDF research and development installation looked down at the forms authorizing NERV's seizure of the largest piece of equipment he controlled, his eyes wide and incredulous.

"You want the prototype positron rifle?" he asked.

"That's correct, sir," Maya answered, nodding and hoping he didn't see how nervous she was.

"But this is just so…ridiculous!" the colonel sputtered.

"I aware of that, sir, but it's the only way to save Japan from the Angel," Maya said apologetically. "All right, Rei!"

In response to her call, the roof of the huge warehouse was suddenly lifted off the walls by a giant in orange armor. The soldiers inside gasped in awe and not a little fear at the cyclopean colossus as it began to grab the heavy containers that held the components for the experimental positron rifle and load them into a number of NERV trucks waiting outside.

"I'm really very sorry about this, sir, but the world is at stake," Maya told the colonel before saluting and heading outside, eager to be away before the shock wore off.

The new Operations Director climbed into one of the trucks and sat down in the passenger seat, waiting for Unit Zero, recruited into being the world's most expensive mover, finished getting the positron rifle parts into the trucks. She checked her wristwatch anxiously; the Angel had deployed a drill shortly after Unit One was withdrawn from combat, and it was now only a matter of time until it managed to tunnel into the Geofront.

Misao had come to her rescue after the awesome power of the Fifth Angel had left her drawing a blank on how to proceed. After seeing Shinji to intensive care and changing into her normal clothes, the Fourth Child had made her way straight to the Situation Room in NERV headquarters, where Maya and a number of other officers were trying to piece some kind of plan of attack together.

_It's amazing how Misao was still able to project authority like that, even despite having a kid's body,_ Maya thought as the truck she was in began to head back to headquarters.

Maya's various new subordinates had barely bothered to turn to her for confirmation of Misao's orders, not that the new Captain really minded.

Of course, Maya would have preferred if she _hadn't_ had to present Misao's wild plan to the Commanders in Ikari's lair, but at least having to commandeer the positron rifle had seemed downright easy after that.

The small convoy of trucks reached NERV headquarters after about a half an hour, and Maya headed straight for the Situation Room. Misao was right where she had been when Maya had left: analyzing data and fine tuning the plans with Hyuga Makoto. The green light from the computer screens cast strange patterns on their faces.

Also present was Lieutenant Sakura Kaiten, who had been given Maya's former job. She was a technician who had been serving on the command center for a while now. Built similarly to Maya, with black hair that was slightly longer than her own, Sakura had dark eyes and always seemed to be wearing a headset.

"How are we doing?" Maya asked.

"Everything's looking good," Misao said. "Our sniper will attack from the base at Mount Futago. The operation will commence at zero hours tomorrow morning."

She turned to Maya with a small grin. "Say, Captain Ibuki, you should name this operation. It is your first one, after all."

Maya started. "I'd hardly call this operation mine," she said softly.

"Oh, go ahead," Misao urged.

Maya nodded. "All right. From this point on, this operation shall be known as Operation Amaterasu!"

Misao smiled. "Good name," she said. "Now the only question is, who will pilot Unit One in this engagement?"

She hoped the no one heard the hopeful tone that crept into her voice despite herself.

As if on cue, one of the phones in the room rang and Sakura picked it up.

"Shinji's awake," the technician announced after a brief conversation, hanging up the phone.

"Good," Maya said, relieved for a whole host of reasons.

"I wonder if he'll be willing to pilot again, though?" Sakura mused. "After what just happened to him…"

"If he won't pilot Unit One, I will," Misao said firmly. "I'm going down to the medical ward to brief Shinji."

* * *

Shinji forced himself out of his doze as he heard the sound of footsteps and something being rolled into his room. He opened his eyes and looked up to see Misao entering, pushing a cart with a tray of hospital food on it.

He forced himself not to grimace at the sight of it. He couldn't imagine feeling less like eating than he did at that moment, and he couldn't even hazard a guess at what the red stuff on the tray was.

Misao must have somehow sensed his thoughts. She forced a grin and said, "Now I know it's not as good as my cooking, but you really should eat."

_That_ got a small snicker out of Shinji, despite the dark mood his near death experience had put him in. He sat up, and Misao, noticing that he was naked underneath the bed sheet, for once opted to refrain from teasing the Third Child. She just looked up and pretended she didn't notice, as he clearly didn't.

"What happened?" Shinji asked.

Misao pulled a chair up to Shinji's bedside and explained how they had withdrawn Unit One from the battle, then quickly briefed him on the plan to snipe the Angel without having to get EVA close enough to neutralize its AT field.

"It all sounds pretty simple until you remember that we've got EVA Units doing it, with a giant, untested positron rifle, that will be using all the energy in Japan," Misao finished with a trace of humor, before sobering entirely. "Shinji-kun…you don't have to do this. I can—"

"No," Shinji said, his voice quiet but firm. "I'll do it. You said that the sniper position is best handled by the one with the highest sync ratio, and that's me."

Misao blinked in surprise. Between Shinji's distaste for piloting and what he'd just gone through, she hadn't thought he'd hesitate to take the offered out.

His taking up of the gauntlet that the Fifth Angel threw down sparked a fierce war of emotions inside Misao. Pride for him for finally seeming to find his courage, fear for him because he could die in this engagement, and disappointment that she was being denied the chance to strike the Angels herself.

In the end, pride won out.

_He's so brave,_ she thought. Then, her eyes widened as she realized the feeling coursing through her _wasn't_ quasi-maternal pride. It was more like…

_No, no, no! Bad Misato! Damn teenaged hormones!_

"Are you all right, Misao?" Shinji asked, noticing the play of emotions on Misao's face but unable to interpret them.

"Fine, fine," she reassured him. "If you're going to do this, you'd better eat and get ready. The EVA Units have to depart for the Mount Futago base in just under an hour."

"Right," Shinji said.

"I'm going to go and join the command team," Misao said. "Maya's pretty helpless without me."

Shinji smiled. "I'll see you at the Mount Futago base, then?"

Misao nodded. "See ya," she said, departing.

Shinji reached over for the food tray, then looked down at himself, yelping as he suddenly realized his state of undress.

"Ah! I was naked the_ whole time!?_"

* * *

A handful of hours later, Shinji and Rei sat side by side as they waited outside their EVA's for the time to commence the operation to drew nearer. All the frantic rushing to get everything ready and in place and now it was time to wait.

"Rei?" Shinji said. "Could I ask you something?"

"Yes," Rei replied.

"Where do you find the strength to do this?" Shinji asked. "To pilot EVA, I mean? Why do you do it?"

Rei turned her head, regarding him silently for a long moment before she answered. "It is my bond."

Shinji frowned in confusion. "Your bond?"

"EVA is my bond to all people," Rei said, as though that explained everything.

Shinji shook his head slightly, realizing that Rei's methods of propelling herself through this war couldn't help him. The concept of being "bonded" to everyone through Evangelion was far too abstract and nebulous a thing for him to use as a source of courage and motivation. Shinji marveled over the fact that Rei could.

"You're very strong, Rei," he said.

"It is all I have," Rei replied.

"Huh?"

"Come," she said, standing. "It's time."

"Right," Shinji said, suppressing a sigh.

_I mustn't run away. I have to stay and fight. For Misao._

"Sayonara," Rei said.

Starting at the sound of a word with such finality, Shinji turned just in time to see Rei as she climbed into Unit Zero's entry plug. The First Child looked ethereal and beautiful, bathed in the light of the moon, but at the same time she looked so tiny and fragile, especially next to the Unit Zero's giant form, that Shinji felt his heart wrench with sadness.

Sighing, he turned and walked over to his own EVA.

* * *

Shinji felt ready to explode with nervousness as the countdown timer on his HUD grew closer and closer to zero. This was even worse than his previous battles, in that here there was plenty of time for the anticipation to get to him.

Of course, he had even more reason than usual to be anxious. His newfound resolve was facing its first true test. It had been so easy to turn down Misao's offer of taking his place in battle, but he knew that the real trial would be inside the entry plug of EVA Unit One.

Now it was time to find out if having something to fight for made him strong enough to be an EVA pilot and actually do some real good for once in his life.

"Zero hundred hours! Commencing operation!" he heard Maya over his radio.

_She sounds almost as nervous as I feel,_ he thought, grinning wryly as his tension ebbed for a brief moment.

"Roger!" Shinji replied, summonsing his targeting visor with a thought.

The voices of the various technicians in the mobile command vehicle were just loud enough to be picked up by his radio, and Shinji found himself straining his ears to hear them. He had nothing else to do with what he knew were going to be some of the longest seconds of his existence.

"Initiate primary connection!"

"Initiating power transmission from districts numbers 1 through 803."

"Voltages rising…water exchange units reaching pressure zone."

"All cooling systems switching to full power."

Shinji could just hear a dull roar growing behind Unit One as the massive electrical infrastructure that NERV had spent the last several hours frantically constructing came to life, and Shinji felt his nervousness spiking.

They were entrusting him with all the power of Japan, all of it routed through a hastily thrown together network of high capacity power conduits, and he was supposed to use an experimental weapon to shoot with pinpoint accuracy! It was insane! He couldn't do something like that! He didn't have that kind of talent or skill! He wasn't any kind of prodigy or anything!

_Shinji-kun, chill out! You'll do fine!_ A voice inside his head suddenly called out.

He couldn't help but notice that the voice sounded suspiciously like Misao, or that it had the effect of lessening his fear and anxiety to the point that he wasn't on the verge of panic anymore.

He took a deep breath. _I mustn't run away!_

"Release final safety systems!" Maya shouted.

"Hai!" Shinji replied, pulling back on a lever on the gun and sliding the massive fuse into place. "Safety systems released."

"Error correction for the Earth's gravity and rotation at 0.009."

"Voltage just short of critical."

"No!" Ritsuko suddenly shouted. "We're picking up a huge energy reaction in the target!"

"F-Fire now!" Maya ordered.

Shinji squeezed the trigger on one of his control yokes, and EVA Unit pulled the trigger on the positron rifle with him. A beam of green light streaked out from the massive barrel of the gun, and for a fraction of a second most of the NERV technical crew breathed a sigh of relief at seeing the weapon discharge without exploding spectacularly.

Then the shining spear of death drew near to a purple beam of light that had shot forth from the Angel. The magnetic fields of the two beams interacted and caused both to _twist_, changing their trajectories.

But what nobody knew, _couldn't_ know, was that Maya had given the order to fire just a moment later than the previous Operations Director would have. As a result, the beams interacted in a slightly different place and were diverted onto slightly different paths than they would have been…

* * *

Everyone in the mobile command vehicle screamed as the world shook. The incredible shockwave shattered the windows, and the emergency lights came on and flooded the interior with red light.

"What happened?" Misao demanded as she pulled herself off the floor.

"The shots redirected each other!" Hyuga said. "The shockwave from the Angel's attack threw Unit One onto its back and knocked the rifle out of alignment with the target!"

"The positron blast managed to hit the Angel, but we missed the core! Thirty percent of the Angel's upper half has been annihilated!" Sakura reported. "The Angel is regenerating rapidly!"

"It'll attack again once it's finished repairing itself!" Misao exclaimed.

"We've got to attack a second time while we still can," Maya agreed grimly. "Shinji! Get up and ready the second shot!"

Their only answer from Unit One's radio channel was a low groan. Misao and Maya shared a fearful look.

Then a communications window from NERV headquarters appeared on the command vehicle's main screen. "The pilot of Unit One is not able to perform the task," Gendo said. "Unit Zero must assume the sniping position."

* * *

Shinji wondered why the rifle and the battle had seemed so important a few minutes ago. Having his Evangelion, an engine of death that weighed in excess of several hundred tons, flung backwards like a rag doll had really served to reorganize his priorities. At the moment, all he cared about was the pain shooting through his entire body and especially his head.

"The pilot of Unit One is not able to perform the task," his father's voice cut through the fog that had descended upon his mind like a searchlight. "Unit Zero must assume the sniping position."

Shinji's eyes widened. If he screwed this up, his father may well decide that his superior sync ratio really wasn't that important after all.

"No!" he shouted. "I can do this!"

Without waiting for a response, he forced himself forward, ignoring his body's screams of protest and gripped the control yokes, commanding Unit One back into motion. The violet giant rose stiffly, grabbing the huge gun that lay before it. Shinji grunted with effort as the EVA lifted the weapon just off the ground and pointed it at the Angel again.

He risked a glance out at the enormous blue diamond as he maneuvered Unit One back onto its belly behind the rifle. It was regenerating the chunk he'd blown out of it with frightening speed.

Shinji pumped the lever on the side of the rifle, popping a new fuse into place.

"Initiating recharge!" he heard Hyuga shout.

"Barrel cooling in process!" Sakura added.

"Come on," Shinji urged as he watched the Angel restore itself, as though he could speed the reload process just by willing it. "Come _on_…"

"Twenty seconds till recharge is complete," Hyuga said.

"The enemy's drill has broken into the Geofront!" Sakura reported, managing to ramp up the pressure on Shinji further than the Third Child would have believed possible a moment ago.

"Come _on_!" Shinji practically snarled in his impatience.

"The enemy has completed regenerating its body! High energy reaction detected inside the target!" Sakura cried.

"Oh no," Shinji breathed, as he looked out at the now fully restored form of the Angel, just before another lance of deadly violet light shot out at him.

The Third Child squeezed his eyes shut, certain that oblivion was only seconds away.

Unit One shook violently, and Shinji could feel the LCL churning around him, but his life didn't end. The Third Child opened his eyes and was nearly blinded by the intense light right before him. Rei and Unit Zero had leapt to his defense with the heat shield NERV had dragged out of storage from this battle.

"Rei…" Shinji breathed.

"Recharge complete! Second shot ready!" Hyuga barked.

Shinji immediately turned his attention to the image displayed by his targeting visor and began to line up the shot. Either luck was with him, or the unholy amount of adrenaline in his veins was somehow granting him a much higher level of skill than he usually possessed.

He got a solid target lock almost instantly.

Shinji pulled the trigger on the positron rifle, and the green beam shot out. This time the bolt of antimatter flew straight and true, and struck the Angel dead center, piercing the core hidden in the middle. The massive Angel went tumbling on its side, gouts of flame billowing out of its dead form and the huge drill bit coming from the bottom of it snapping off it like a twig.

His newfound strength had held, but Shinji didn't waste time basking in the thrill of victory. "Rei!" he shouted, opening an EVA-to-EVA channel. "Rei! Are you all right?!"

Unit Zero slumped forward, as though all of the prototype's armor and all of its bones had become rubber. Shinji looked at the "FROM EVA-00" box on his HUD, only to see snow where the image of Rei should have been.

* * *

"Rei! Rei! Are you all right?!"

The First Child heard those words, and for a second, she thought that somehow she was back in the aftermath of the failed activation experiment and that the one showing such concern for her was Commander Ikari.

Then her mind cleared and she realized that it was an Ikari calling for her so frantically, but not Gendo Ikari. She glanced at the communications window on her display and saw only static.

_The interference from all the high energy weapons fire must be scrambling the visual feed,_ she thought.

"Ikari-kun," Rei spoke, and the Third Child's shouts paused abruptly. "I am unharmed. The shield held."

"Oh thank god!" Shinji exclaimed, just as the picture cleared up.

Rei's red eyes widened very slightly in surprise as she looked at him; Pilot Ikari appeared to be crying. She had no idea why this was so, and yet she found herself touched by this display of emotion.

_Curious._

"Don't say good-bye when you leave on a mission!" Shinji said before Rei could form any kind of reply. "It's just too sad! And don't say you have nothing else besides EVA! You have me and Misao! We're your friends, aren't we?"

Rei wasn't immediately aware that her mouth was curving upwards to form a small smile. "Yes," she answered, "I suppose you are."

* * *

The Pulse was what the NERV officer's club had come to be known as, the name coming from some lame pun made shortly after the organization had ceased being GEHRIN and became NERV ("NERV Pulse! Get it? Wakka, wakka, wakka!"). No one could remember just who had made said lame pun, and if he still worked for NERV, he wasn't coming forward to claim credit. Regardless, the name stuck.

It was a fairly austere place, but it was usually pretty well patronized, if only for the sake of how convenient it was for the NERV officers and because they could freely talk shop there.

Technically speaking, Misao probably wasn't allowed access to the place anymore. Pilots weren't officers, after all. But none of the staff had even thought to tell her to leave, especially since she'd arrived with Ritsuko Akagi, who was high up enough in NERV that the fact that she was technically a civilian didn't stop her from occasionally stopping at the Pulse.

"So, how's Shinji?" Ritsuko asked, lightning up a cigarette and inhaling deeply.

"Exhausted, but fine," Misao said. "He didn't even bother trying to get home. After he showered, he just stumbled into an empty room in the medical ward and passed out on the bed there. I can't blame him, after the day he's had."

"Maybe you should follow his example," Ritsuko suggested, smirking. "After all, you're still growing, young lady."

Misao growled something unintelligible, then sighed. "I will," she said, "but first I need to wind down a little."

As if on cue, their waiter arrived with their drinks. Misao and Ritsuko thanked him, and he bowed and withdrew.

"I still can't believe you're drinking green tea," Ritsuko said with a grin as she sipped at her cocktail.

Misao scowled. "They might have let me in here, but I doubt that they'd let me have something alcoholic. Besides," she said, her features smoothing out as she became thoughtful, "I guess the stuff's growing on me."

Ritsuko just shook her head. Half of the scientist had believed that Misao would somehow go on guzzling beer despite the fact that she wasn't legal anymore, and the other half had expected her to switch to soda or _something_ that was bad for her. That the Fourth Child had actually accepted a healthy alternative to her favorite drink surprised her, to say the least.

"Are you all right, Misao?" Ritsuko asked. "You seem pretty upset, considering that things could've gone a lot worse than they did back there."

Misao hesitated, gazing down into the green depths of her tea. "The more things change, the more they stay the same," she said, then looked back up at Ritsuko. "Nothing was different today than it would have been if this hadn't happened to me. I was still the Operations Director, though I had to act through Maya, and Shinji still had to be the one in the line of fire."

"There are still plenty of Angels left to go, Misao," Ritsuko reminded her friend, then took a drag off her cigarette. "And with you as a backup, Shinji will only be in the entry plug for as long as he can take it."

"I know, but it's more than that," Misao confessed, then paused for a moment to gather her thoughts. "I feel like I've got one foot in the adult world and one foot in the children's world. Right now, here I am, enjoying a quiet chat and a drink with my old pal from college. On Monday after school, I may well hit the arcade along with Shinji and his friends, and that'll be just as genuine as this."

Ritsuko smirked. "You've gone to an arcade with Shinji and his friends?"

Misao grinned. "Yup! I took the high score on this shooting game called Crisis Situation 6 on my first try," she boasted, before she became serious again. "I don't just feel like an adult trapped in a kid's body, like I did when this first happened. Now I'm starting to feel like I'm both 29 and 14 at once. It's confusing."

Ritsuko nodded. "I can imagine," she said. "I'm not really surprised that you're starting to feel a bit like a teenager again, though. Physically, you are, and the state of the body does have an effect on the mind after all. Hormone levels, brain development, and a host of other physical factors have a large impact on one's mental state. If anything, it's more surprising that it took so long for you to start feeling this way."

"It's a lot to get adjusted to," Misao said. "Then there's Shinji…"

Ritsuko frowned. "What about him?"

Misao caught the sharpness in her old friend's voice and immediately abandoned any desire to confess to her about the brief spark of attraction she'd felt for Shinji earlier.

"Well, I'm not sure what I should do with him anymore. Should I still try and act like his guardian? Should I be his friend? Should I try to do both? I just don't know," she said.

"I wish I could tell you," Ritsuko said.

Misao rolled her eyes. "A lot of help you are."

Ritsuko smirked slightly. "Misao, I'm not sure anyone can really help you very much. What you're going through is a rather unique experience after all."

"I guess so," Misao conceded with a yawn.

"Go to bed, young lady, you need your sleep," Ritsuko said with a small smirk.

"Yeah, yeah, fine, _mother_," Misao said, finishing her tea and getting up from her chair. "Good night, Rits."

"Night, Misao."

"Damned fourteen-year-old body," Misao mumbled to herself as she walked off, yawning again.

* * *

Author's Notes: Yeesh, that was hard. You don't really realize that the vast bulk of this battle is just building suspense until you try to write it (or at least, I didn't). There's very little actual action compared to many of the other fights. I had to borrow from the first Rebuild of Evangelion movie in order to show that Shinji's being more pro-active now when it comes to fighting the Angels.

Anyway, here an unprepared Maya has a promotion forced upon her, and the result is Misao acting as de facto Ops Director. Whether or not Maya can grow to fill her new role is something you'll need to keep reading to find out. We also have Maya's replacement Sakura, who is supposed to be the nameless bridge bunny that always seemed most prominent to me. She was in the mobile command vehicles a lot in the anime. Originally, Sakura's only purpose in this was saying Maya's lines from the anime, but in my rough draft she somehow became occasional comic relief. It'll be a while before we see that aspect of her, though.

When I first changed the name of Operation Yashima to Operation Amaterasu, I thought Amaterasu was the Shinto goddess of thunder. Turns out she's the sun goddess. Fortunately, her name literally translates into "that which illuminates Heaven." Since I'm sure it's safe to say the battle lit up the night sky, it still seemed appropriate, so I didn't change it.

Anyway, next up is Jet Alone, which will probably be fairly short. The chapter after that will be the arrival of Asuka and Kaji, which I know a few of you are looking forward to.

Hobbes221 and Legato Deathscythe, I was wondering if anyone would notice that reference. I'm glad that you did. :)

Fifth Horseman, thank you for your insightful reviews. They really keep me thinking on how to best develop this story.

Rose1948, thanks. It's always a nice boost to know what you've written is good enough to inspire others to write.

Zoro50, while it's true that canon Shinji wasn't exactly big on protecting people, he was clearly looking for a reason to pilot EVA. I don't think it's too hard to believe that he might latch onto such a reason and hold onto it like nobody's business.

Thanks to all my readers and reviewers. Now for some fun!

* * *

Omakes

Maybe Misao will become an early riser…

"I'm not so sure about this," Shinji said apprehensively as they waited to be let into one of the most popular dance clubs in the city.

"Relax, Shinji-kun!" Misao said. "We're just going to have some fun, and this place doesn't even serve alcohol, so it's not like we're doing anything illegal by going in."

"Yeah, Ikari, quit worrying all the time," Toji agreed.

"You gotta live a little!" Kensuke added.

Shinji just rolled his eyes, knowing that the two other boys would never have ventured to such a place if Misao weren't going. Of course, he himself wouldn't have gone if not for his reluctance to leave Misao alone with Toji and Kensuke for any extended period of time, so maybe he didn't have much right to complain.

The foursome finally made it inside the crowded club, and Shinji grimaced the moment they entered. Loud music blared from huge speakers, and colored lights were flashing everywhere. It wasn't exactly his kind of place.

"Hey! It looks like there's some kind of show going on!" Toji yelled over the noise, pointing toward the stage, which was obscured by spectators.

"I think it's amateur night!" Kensuke replied.

"Whoever it is must be pretty good to draw a crowd like that!" Misao said. "Let's go watch!"

The four teenagers squeezed through the crowd until they were able to see the stage. Their jaws dropped as they finally lay eyes upon the performer.

Rei Ayanami was up on stage break dancing. The First Child was wearing her ubiquitous school uniform, but she had a black leather jacket on over that and a large pair of sunglasses were on her face.

And she was good. _Really _good.

"Go Rei! Go Rei! Go Rei! It's your birthday!" the crowd chanted as the blue haired girl started moon walking across the stage.

The song ended after a few minutes, and Rei stopped dancing. The crowd burst into wild cheers and the First Child bowed, grinning hugely.

"Sweet kami-sama…" Misao breathed.

"It's the end of the world," Shinji added.

It was at this point that Rei noticed four of her classmates staring at her with shocked expressions on their faces. Scowling, she slid her sunglasses down her nose and gazed at the teens over them.

"Just because I'm the key to the Commander's shady and vaguely nefarious plan doesn't mean I can't have a hobby, you know," she said testily.

Shinji and Misao did the sensible thing and fainted.

* * *

Excess Hotness

"You know, Shinji-kun, I don't think Sensei actually ever reads our homework," Misao commented as she and her flat mate road the elevator up toward their apartment. "I'll bet we could just write anything down, and he wouldn't even know!"

Shinji sweat dropped as the elevator pinged and the doors opened. "I'm not sure that's a good idea, Misao…"

"Spoil sport," Misao pouted.

The two reached the door to the apartment and went in.

"We're home!" they called out of habit.

"Welcome home!" Misato replied cheerfully.

Shinji's jaw dropped and his eyes widened to the size of saucers as he looked back and forth at Misao and then Misato so quickly that he nearly gave himself whiplash.

"Cousin Misato!" Misao exclaimed. "It's so good to see you again! I wasn't expecting you back so soon!"

"Well, I managed to get the tasks NERV needed done at the Fourth Branch finished sooner than planned," Misato said. "So, kiddo, how long did everyone buy it?"

Misao giggled. "Everyone _still_ thinks we're the same person! Even Dr. Akagi!"

Misato laughed. "Really? Wow, I didn't think you'd be able to fool her for long. I'll never let Rits live _this_ one down!"

"You…one…two…two of you…" Shinji stammered, pointing dumbly at one Katsuragi and then the other.

"Yeah, my cousin and I thought we'd play a little prank on everyone," Misato said. "I hope you don't mind."

"I really like it here, Misato," Misao said. "Can I stay? Please?"

"Well, if it's okay with my roommate here," Misato said, looking at Shinji, who was far too overwhelmed to even nod.

"Oh please say it's okay, Shinji-kun! I'll make it worth your while," Misao said in a sultry voice.

"Please, Shinji-kun," Misato urged. "I know it'll be a little cramped, but I'm sure we'll be a happy _threesome_."

The mere mental image _that_ choice of words created proved far too much for the poor boy; Shinji went collapsing to the floor as blood spurted from his nose in a high pressure jet.

Misato and Misao laughed and high-fived.

"We are good!" Misato exclaimed.

"Yes we are!" Misao agreed.

The two succumbed to a huge fit of giggling, but their merriment began to wane when they realized that Shinji wasn't getting up. The pool of blood under his face was looking awfully large, they realized.

Suddenly apprehensive, Misato kneeled down and pressed her fingers to the boy's wrist. Her face paled at what she felt or, more accurately, didn't feel.

"Oh my god," Misato breathed. "We killed Shinji!"

Misao's eyes widened. "You mean we made him bleed to death…through his _nose_?!"

"It looks like it," Misato said.

They were silent for a long, long moment as the realization sank in. Then…

"It was your fault!!" they both yelled in perfect unison, each pointing an accusing finger at the other.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

Chapter Five: **Introspection/Powerless**

"Are you guys really serious?" Shinji demanded, incredulously. "I mean, this is…just plain messed up."

That Monday had begun like any other day, save for the fact that Toji and Kensuke hadn't shown up to walk with them to school. Shinji had been curious as to why not, but he hadn't been distressed over it. It was nice not to have to watch them awkwardly trying to flirt with Misao, with the purple haired girl stringing the poor guys along without actually letting them get anywhere.

It had only been by chance that he'd spotted the sign out of the corner of his eye when he and Misao had walked into the school yard together. "Photos of the famous EVA pilot! Only thirty yen!" it read.

Shinji had made the assumption that the "famous EVA pilot" was him. Which really wasn't illogical, when one considered that he was the only one of the three pilots who went to that school that had been mobbed by crazed fans so far.

Suspecting that Misao would overreact to someone selling pictures of him without his permission—even if they were only shots of him walking down the street—Shinji told her to go ahead to class and went over to investigate the matter alone.

When he'd reached the shadowed corner of the schoolyard where the photographers were keeping shop, he was stunned to see that it was Toji and Kensuke who were exchanging pictures for money.

He was then doubly stunned to see that they weren't pictures of him, but of Misao, some of them surprisingly risqué. He immediately decided he didn't want to know how they'd managed to get a picture of her while she was inside the girl's locker room.

"Are you really selling people pictures of Misao?" Shinji asked, not quite able to believe it despite having the proof right in front of him.

"Oh, come on, Shinji, it's a gold mine!" Kensuke said, counting the wad of bills in his hand. "The guys can't get enough of her!"

"But…why now?" Shinji asked, still trying to fully wrap his mind around what his friends were doing. "Haven't people known that she's a pilot for a while now?"

Kensuke chuckled sheepishly. "Well, yeah, but there's been a kinda…surge of interest in her," he said. "Ya see, I hacked into my dad's files while the Fifth Angel was drilling through the ground and found out when NERV was going to deploy the EVA's. Me and Toji put off going back to the shelter and brought a bunch of guys to watch them leave for the Mount Futago base."

"After what happened with the Forth Angel?" Shinji asked, running a hand down his face in exasperation. "Never mind. What does that have to do with anything?"

"We kind of…told people that Misao was the one piloting the orange one," Toji confessed, finally speaking up.

Shinji frowned. "Misao can only pilot Unit One. You guys know that. Rei was the one piloting Unit Zero."

"Yeah, but pictures of Ayanami wouldn't sell nearly as well. She's just so…put offish," Kensuke changed his choice of words at the look on Shinji's face. "We saw an opportunity to create demand, and we took it."

"So, in other words, you guys lied, giving Misao credit for what Rei did, in order to create a better market for your sleazy pictures," Shinji said flatly.

"Oh come on, Shinji, lighten up," Toji said, sounding annoyed. "It's not that big of a deal."

"We'll split the money with you," Kensuke offered.

Not long ago, even this little bit of pressure would have caused him to fold like a cheap tent. However, Shinji Ikari was feeling just a bit more self-confident than he had prior to successfully killing the Fifth Angel. His resolve wavered only briefly before re-solidifying.

"Close up shop you guys, right now," Shinji ordered firmly.

"What?!" Kensuke exclaimed. "But—"

"We're really raking it in here, man!" Toji protested. "You can't do this to us!"

"Close up shop," Shinji repeated, his eyes narrowing slightly. "Do it, right now or…I'll tell the class rep about this."

Toji and Kensuke's eyes widened fearfully. "You wouldn't!" Toji exclaimed.

"Y-You couldn't betray us like that!" Kensuke sputtered, though it sounded more like a plea. "Why would you do such a thing?"

Inspiration suddenly struck Shinji and he answered, "Misato-san asked me to look after Misao for her."

"But…" Kensuke stammered, rather pitifully.

"Wouldn't you guys do this if Misato asked _you_ to look after her cousin?" Shinji pressed, suspecting that either of them might jump off a cliff if Misato asked them to.

"But you said the two of them fight like cats and dogs!" Toji protested.

"They do, but just because they don't get along doesn't mean that they can't care for each other," Shinji said, the statement causing his mind to involuntarily flash to his Father for a moment. "Now close this place down, or I swear I really will tell Hikari."

Kensuke sighed. "Fine, Ikari, you win."

* * *

"Good afternoon, Rei," Misao greeted cheerfully as she sat down at what was starting to be known as 'the pilots' table.'

"Hi, Ayanami," Shinji added.

Rei glanced up at her two fellow pilots, and for the first time smiled ever so slightly at their appearance at her table. "Hello, Ikari. Katsuragi."

Shinji sat down, handing Misao a bento as usual. He caught a glimpse of Toji and Kensuke out of the corner of his eye, seated at a neighboring table, also as per usual. Unlike usual, however, the two were both favoring him with a surly glare. Shinji responded with his own glare, unaware that it was dark enough to make him resemble his Father rather strongly.

Toji and Kensuke quickly looked away.

Shinji turned his attention back to his lunch. He felt bad, earning his friends' ire, but what they'd been doing had really struck him as creepy and wrong. Hopefully they'd get over it if he paid for them at the arcade or something.

_Well,_ he mused, _at least things are getting better with the NERV stuff._

Not only had he found that his reason to pilot EVA stood up under the pressure of actually doing it, but Rei…

Well, Rei was the same as she always was: quiet. And yet, after the battle against the Fifth Angel, the silence the pale girl seemed to generate didn't seem nearly so awkward any more.

* * *

"I thought that Toji and Kensuke were coming to the arcade with us after school today," Misao said as she and Shinji left school after another long day of listening to Sensei's lectures. "What happened?"

"Hikari changed the cleaning schedule, and they're doing the classroom today. I don't know why," Shinji answered.

This was technically true, since Shinji hadn't told Hikari about Toji and Kensuke's little business. However, he would have been very surprised if the two of them getting put on cleanup duty that day was coincidence.

"You still want to hit the arcade?" he asked.

"Sure, I want to see if I can beat my high score," Misao said cheerfully, then she frowned. "Oh, shoot, I think I left my algebra book back in the classroom. Wait here a minute, Shinji-kun, I'll be right back."

Before he could reply, Misao was running back toward the classroom. In only a few minutes she had arrived outside the door and was about to enter when a sudden shouting from inside caused her to flinch back.

"You two idiots should just be glad this is all I'm doing to you for your…your _disgusting_ little antics!" boomed the voice of the class rep from inside.

Misao carefully peered inside the classroom, just able to see Toji and Kensuke as they mumbled something conciliatory and continued sweeping the floor of the classroom, eyes downcast.

She quickly took a step back from the door as Hikari suddenly exited, obviously in a huff. "Oh, Misao-san!" she exclaimed, stopping short when she saw the purple haired girl. "I was just going to look for you. I believe this is yours."

Hikari handed the algebra textbook that Misao had forgotten to her.

"Arigato," Misao said. "You know, it might not be any of my business, but I think you might've been a little harsh on them, Hikari-san."

"You wouldn't say that if you knew what they were doing earlier today," Hikari said, clenching her hand into a fist, obviously fuming all over again.

It didn't take long to discover how conservative Hikari Horaki could be, especially if you were part of class 2-A. Knowing that, Misao suspected that the girl had blown up over little or nothing.

"What were they doing?" Misao asked.

Realizing she'd trapped herself, Hikari answered reluctantly. "The two of them were selling pictures…of you. Some of them were really racy! They got a few of you in the locker room, though they didn't show anything…important, thankfully."

Misao had to resist the urge to laugh. That the two would do such a thing amused her. Heck, it even flattered her a little, to know she apparently still had it despite her physical regression.

But she didn't think the class rep would understand her humor, so she forced her laughter back. "So how did you find out about it?" she asked.

"One of the guys who wanted a picture complained a little too loudly after they closed down their perverted little business," Hikari answered.

Misao frowned. "After they closed it down?"

Hikari nodded. "Yes. From what I understand, Shinji got them to close down not long after they started it up this morning."

"Shinji did?" Misao asked, suddenly remembering his rather odd disappearance that morning before school began.

Hikari nodded. "Yes, apparently your cousin asked him to look out for you, so he forced them to stop selling those pictures somehow. You're lucky to have a friend like him, Misao-san."

Misao's eyes widened, knowing full well that Shinji had stepped in and stopped what his friends were doing of his own initiative. He had simply wanted to protect her, it seemed.

It had been unnecessary, both because Misao wasn't truly annoyed at Toji and Kensuke's antics and because she certainly didn't need a boy who was genuinely fourteen standing up for her. But still, it was sweet…

_Ah! Not again!_ She thought as she realized she was once more feeling that unwelcome spark of attraction.

"Misao-san, are you all right?" Hikari asked. "You look a little flushed."

"I'm fine, fine," Misao said quickly, waving off the class rep's concern. "Thank you for bringing me my book, Hikari-san. Now I'd better go, Shinji's waiting for me."

She gave the class rep a quick bow and then turned and ran back to find Shinji waiting for her in the schoolyard.

"Hey, did you find it?" he asked.

"Yeah," Misao answered, smiling and holding up the book. "Now let's go and hit the arcade!"

He nodded and they started their trek to the favorite place of numerous Tokyo-3 children to lose money.

* * *

Misao didn't beat her high score that afternoon. In fact, she didn't come close. Her mind was occupied by far more important matters than sending the alien invaders she was shooting at to hell.

_What is wrong with me? Why do I keep feeling these things for Shinji?_ She wondered, pulling the trigger on her fake gun and sending alien brains flying across the screen.

She wasn't supposed to be attracted to him; he was a teenage boy, barely more than a child. No, any attraction in their relationship was supposed to be one-way, the result of her playfully teasing him.

But that wasn't the way it was happening. Back in the Medical Ward and then again just now, she had been attracted to him. There were just no two ways about it.

She could tell herself that one incident was a fluke, but two? She doubted it, she doubted it very strongly.

So why was she feeling these things?

_Okay, dumb question. It's because I'm fourteen again and he's a nice, cute kid. The fact that we live and work together probably has something to do with it, too,_ she thought.

_But it wouldn't be right, would it?_ Another part of her mind spoke up as she pumped virtual lead into a green monstrosity with several tentacles. _I mean, I'm fourteen in a way, but I'm also still twenty-nine, too. Even Ritsuko said so._

A pair of giant dragonfly-like enemies appeared on screen and Misao spun and opened fire on them. _Ritsuko,_ she sighed. _I wish I could talk to her about this, but if I even mentioned it she'd probably see to it that Shinji-kun is moved to some dank room in the Geofront FAR away from me. I don't want that; Shinji-kun is my friend, and I don't think living on his own would do him any good, either._

Having reduced the dragonfly aliens to green smears on the wall, Misao 'advanced' to another room, where a horde of cannon fodder enemies waited for her. She grasped her plastic gun in both hands and started pulling the trigger.

_Would it be so terrible? Really? The kid's been a whole lot less gloomy lately, but he's still hardly the most cheerful guy in the world. A girlfriend would do him good, and he _has_ been very good to me,_ she mused as alien guts went flying all over the screen. _I don't even think fraternization is against the rules for the pilots._

The cannon fodder bad guys disposed of, Misao proceeded to the next room, where a huge boss alien awaited. She aimed for one of its numerous eyes, knowing from having played this game before that they were its weak spots.

_But part of me still thinks of him as a child! Ugh! This is so confusing!_

The screen flashed red as one of the boss's attacks hit her, Misao's health bar going down by half. She shook her head and tried to concentrate on the game.

It was no good. The thoughts currently swirling around her head demanded attention. She realized that she was more or less up a creek without a paddle if she wanted a little companionship at the moment. To men who were around her real age, she was jail bait. And judging by her furious internal debate, she couldn't do anything with a boy who was the same age as she was physically without her conscience torturing her for it.

Well, fine. She hadn't had a serious boyfriend in a while, and she'd been doing all right. Also, since she was fourteen again, she had plenty of time to find someone to be with. She'd just wait until she grew up again.

She glanced to the side, where Shinji was playing, of all things, space invaders. Her lips curved upwards into a smile as she looked at the Third Child. Maybe if she didn't have her eye on anyone else when Shinji became legal, and he was single at that time…

The game she was playing suddenly let out a loud noise. She jumped in surprise and turned to see the Game Over screen flashing before her. Misao sighed, seeing that she had only scored enough points to take the eighth place slot on the high score list this time.

* * *

_Well, well, well, déjà vu all over again,_ Dr. Akagi thought sourly as she eyed Shinji out of the corner of her eye.

The boy's tests were all done for the day, yet he stuck around, waiting for Misao. The Fourth Child was currently in Unit One, doing combat simulations in what most of the techs referred to as the "Danger Room."

Shinji had come to the control room to wait and was standing there watching the monitors, completely silent. It still annoyed Ritsuko, even more so now as it prompted her to wonder why he felt compelled to watch these things. Was he watching because he cared about her? Or was it because having a backup and potential replacement had lit a fire under his feet, and he wanted to keep an eye on the competition?

As Ritsuko Akagi was both a scientist and a cynic, it was the latter hypothesis she was running with for the moment. It didn't exactly endear the boy to her. It was simply too stupid if it was true. Ritsuko hated stupidity.

_Not enough evidence yet to reach a conclusion,_ Ritsuko thought. _Who knows? Perhaps I've completely misjudged him and haven't even guessed at his true motive._

She turned her attention back to the present. Maya was currently commanding Misao in a simulated battle against the Fourth Angel. The former bridge technician was doing better in her new position. At least, she was doing better when it came to commanding virtual combat.

"The Angel is located three meters north of your position," Maya told Misao over the link between the control room and the EVA. "Retrieve the weapon from block 22-A and engage."

"Roger," Misao said crisply, throwing Unit One into motion.

The purple giant's movements were slightly clunky compared to when Shinji piloted it, an inevitable result of Misao's lower sync ratio. Still, the EVA wasn't clumsy in her hands, just less graceful.

One of the faux buildings opened, revealing an EVA sized rocket launcher. Unit One lifted it up, then jogged toward the Angel's position, moving as quietly as a 70 meter tall war machine was capable of moving.

Unit One pressed itself against one of the skyscrapers and peered around the corner, allowing Misao to see the Angel through its eyes. Catching a glimpse of its target, the EVA brought up the rocket launcher and Misao pulled the trigger.

A huge rocket burst out of the barrel of her weapon with enough velocity that it would have reached the upper atmosphere, had she pointed it upwards. The Fourth Child, of course, had done no such thing, so it went flying toward the huge target of the Fourth Angel instead.

Only to explode against a hexagonal shield which flashed into existence before the Angel, protecting the purple beast from the blast entirely.

"You're too far away to neutralize the AT field," Maya said. "You'll have to engage this Angel in close quarters combat."

Misao had already been putting down the rocket launcher in preparation of doing just that, but she acknowledged the order anyway. "Hai!"

"Progressive knife deployed," Makoto reported, rather unnecessarily, as they could all clearly see Unit One drawing its melee weapon from its shoulder pylon.

Unit One charged forward, the giant knife held firmly in its grip. Misao let out a cry of pain as the pink energy whips of the Angel lashed against the EVA, easily cutting through the armor and raking against the giant's flesh.

In the control room, Shinji winced.

Despite the pain, the Fourth Child did not stop. Instead, she urged her machine to move faster, bringing the knife down upon the Angel's red core. There was a terrific shower of sparks as the blade began to cut away at the super dense core material.

The Angel suddenly grabbed hold of Unit One's wrist with both whips, pulling the EVA forward violently. Misao was unable to get her balance in time, and Unit One went sprawling forward, landing flat on its face. The Angel released its grip on the EVA's wrist and then plunged them into the back of the behemoth, right where the entry plug was.

The images inside the entry plug abruptly shifted to show the inside of the simulation chamber, instead of a very close up view of the asphalt of a random street in Tokyo-3.

"The simulation has ended in failure," Maya said, sounding rather apologetic.

Misao had to force herself not to slam her fist into one of her control yokes. Shinji was able to defeat the simulated Fourth Angel like it was nothing, but she had yet to best the evil thing. The frustration was starting to drive her crazy.

"Let's start from the beginning again," she said through clenched teeth. "I'm sure I can get it this time."

Ritsuko rolled her eyes. "That's what you said last time, Misao," she said. "We're done for the day. Maya and I still have a lot of work to get to, and we'd like to be able to get it done early enough that we can get home by a reasonable time. After all, unlike you, we have an early morning tomorrow."

Misao frowned in confusion for a second before realization dawned. "Oh, the unveiling of Jet Alone," she said with a rather wicked grin, her mood lifting rapidly. "Have fun at that, you two."

"I'm sure we will," Akagi said dryly. "Now get out of there."

"Yes, ma'am," Misao said, ejecting the plug, the communications line between the EVA and the control room terminating as she did so.

"I swear, she hasn't changed a bit," Ritsuko sighed.

Aoba smirked. "Were you expecting getting changed into a teenager would somehow make her _more_ mature?"

Ritsuko grinned ruefully. "I guess not."

Shinji ignored the exchange, slowly approaching Maya. "Um, Captain Ibuki?" he said softly.

She turned to face him. "Yes, Shinji?"

"If you don't mind my asking, why did you bother having Misao attack with the rocket launcher?" he asked. "After all, since this is your simulation, you knew it wouldn't work, right?"

"Realism," Maya answered. "We won't know everything the next Angels can and can't do, so we occasionally instruct Misao to use tactics we know won't work to make the simulations more realistic. Like when we had you use the pallet rifle in the actual battle and it failed to pierce the Angel's armor."

"That makes sense, I guess," Shinji said. "Still…"

"It seems kind of unfair to me, too," Maya confessed. "But this isn't a game, even though in here it might seem like one. Besides, it was Misao herself that suggested we throw her these kinds of loops."

Shinji's eyes widened slightly. "Really?"

"Yes," Maya said. "She's been taking her pilot training very seriously."

Shinji let out a very small sigh. He'd never seen Misao quite as intense as she was when she was doing combat simulations inside Unit One. It worried him somewhat.

_What is it about EVA that's able to do these kinds of things to people?_ Shinji wondered, not quite realizing just how much power he'd ascribed to Evangelion.

He shook his head slightly and headed off to wait for Misao outside the ladies' locker room.

* * *

In lieu of alcohol, Misao had had to find other, lesser vices to indulge in when in need of relieving a little stress after a long day. The one she usually settled on—in what was essentially direct defiance of the Commander's orders—was occasionally pigging out. She reasoned that if she was stuck being fourteen again, she might as well take advantage of her rapid teenage metabolism.

At the moment, she and Shinji were seated on a bench outside a ramen stand in the dying light of twilight.

"See, isn't this nice, Shinji-kun?" Misao asked, slurping down some of her ramen from the jumbo sized bowl she'd bought.

"I guess so," he said, looking down into his much more reasonable portion of noodles.

"Hey, why so glum, Shinji-kun?" Misao asked. "I was the one who got my ass handed to me in the simulator three times today. How are you able to beat that thing so easily, anyway?"

"Considering what happened to me when I fought the real thing, I don't think I'm the best person to go to for advice about this," Shinji pointed out.

"Well, who else am I supposed to ask?" Misao protested. "You're the only pilot with any real combat experience, after all. Don't get me wrong, Rei was brave as hell in Operation Amaterasu, but crouching behind a shield isn't exactly the most complex thing to do. Besides, you've been doing a lot better since then. C'mon, Shinji-kun, all I'm asking for is a few pointers."

Misao then proceeded to give Shinji the most impossibly cute, pleading look that the Third Child had ever seen.

Shinji gulped. He didn't want to help her become a better pilot; if he did that, it would make it easier for her to surpass him and thus get into combat. Keeping her _out_ of combat had become his entire purpose in life, so giving her pointers on how to kill the Fourth Angel was rather counterproductive for him.

But he found he could deny her nothing when she gave him puppy dog eyes like that.

"Against the Fourth Angel, you need to decide if you want a short range kill or a really short range kill," Shinji said, relenting. "Really short range is easy: deploy the prog knife, charge forward, and stab the core. It _will_ hit you with those whips a lot if you do this, and it'll try and throw you off, as you saw. You have to brace yourself for the pain and keep it from managing to fling you away or anything. It's not strong enough to stop you with the whips unless it catches you unprepared. If you want a long range kill, just keep emptying guns on it and staying out of its reach until control sends you a really, really big gun, like the positron rifle. Then charge the Angel, getting at least close enough to neutralize the AT field, and shot the core as near to point blank as you can get."

"Thanks, Shinji-kun, I'll try it next time," she said. "It's probably not that big a deal. Most likely all these simulations are teaching us to do is fight the last battle, but I still can't stand getting whipped by the Angels over and over again."

Shinji nodded. "So, what's this Jet Alone thing you mentioned earlier?" he asked, eager to change the subject.

"It's this giant robot that a company that manufactures military hardware built for the JSSDF," Misao answered with a scowl. "They think they can replace the EVA Units with it, even though the things can't generate an AT field."

"So why do Ritsuko and Maya have to go to the unveiling of the thing?" Shinji asked.

"Commander's orders. Guess he wants them to scope out the competition. It would've been me stuck getting up at the crack of dawn and heading over there, if not for me getting turned into a teenager," Misao said with a grin. "So, whatdaya wanna do tomorrow after school, Shinji-kun? I feel like celebrating escaping the JA demonstration!"

* * *

"C'mon, Rei, Shinji-kun," Misao said cheerfully as they headed out of school. "We've got to hit the mall and get the gear we'll need."

How the idea of heading to the park and learning how to rollerblade had come up, Shinji still wasn't sure. In fact, the only thing he was less sure about was how Misao had convinced Rei to join them.

It wasn't that he had anything against the idea in principle. It sounded like it could be a lot of fun, and part of him was looking forward to enjoying a day off with his fellow pilots. However, he felt quite certain that he'd do more falling than skating, and he found he really didn't want to look so foolish in front of Misao.

So when all their cell phones went off at once, Shinji felt a burst of relief mingled with regret, along with the usual anxiety that came with a summons from NERV. "Angel?" he asked, even as he pulled out his phone to check the text message.

"No," Rei answered, looking down at her own phone. "NERV has gone to second stage alert. Had they detected a blue pattern, they would have gone straight to first stage alert."

"I'll bet this has something to do with that damned robot," Misao grumbled, thumbing in her acknowledgement code. "They're probably just calling us in to be extra sure that nothing happens to us. Being paranoid. I guess our plans for today are shot."

Minutes later, a black NERV car pulled up, driven by a Section Two agent. "Status report!" Misao demanded in her best Operations Director voice as they climbed in.

Somehow, Shinji could tell that the Section Two guy blinked in surprise, despite the fact that he was wearing dark sunglasses. But he quickly shook it off.

"The Jet Alone robot's gone out of control, and its reactor is nearing meltdown," he said, throwing the car into gear and peeling off down the road. "I've been instructed to bring you to headquarters, where you'll all be safe."

"Called it," Misao said smugly. Then her eyes widened. "Wait a minute! That thing's nuclear reactor is going to meltdown?!"

"It seems that way," the agent answered.

"Well, what's being done to stop it?" Misao demanded.

The man shrugged. "I don't know, Pilot Katsuragi. I was just sent to pick all of you up."

Misao nodded, and the rest of the trip to NERV was spent in silence.

* * *

"Nothing?!" Misao exclaimed, her face a mask of shock and horror. "What do you mean you're going to do _nothing_ about the Jet Alone?"

Shinji cringed. The pilots were in the command center, standing on the same level as the three top bridge techs, and Misao was looking up at the highest level, the one where his Father usually sat. The Fourth Child had not taken learning that NERV had no plans to do anything about the JA very well, and now she was shouting at his Father.

"I meant exactly what I said, Pilot Katsuragi," Gendo said coldly. "The JA is none of our concern."

"If the reactor explodes it will kill tens of thousands of people!" Misao protested. "We have to do something to stop it!"

Gendo arched an eyebrow. "Such as?" he asked, voice dripping with contempt. "Engaging the JA with an EVA would likely just cause the reactor to meltdown sooner. At least three EVA Units would be required to contain the blast using AT fields."

Misao paused for a moment, thinking. "If someone could get inside the JA, they could manually activate the emergency shutdown system. Unit One could be equipped with F-type battery packs and put someone, dressed in a radiation suit, onto the JA."

"And who do you suggest undertake this suicide mission?" Gendo asked, entwining his fingers together and leaning his face on his hands. "I can't order someone to do such a thing."

Shinji's hand clenched into a fist. _Oh, but you can blackmail me into piloting Unit One, Father?_

"I volunteer for this mission, sir," Misao said firmly.

Shinji gasped softly, but before he could come up with any kind of viable protest, Gendo spoke up again. "No, as one of the EVA pilots, you are far too valuable to risk in such a manner," he said flatly. "And in any case, I don't think anyone makes radiation suits in children's sizes."

Misao flushed slightly at the jab, then her jaw clenched as she thought about what Commander Ikari was doing. Not only was the man sitting by as a walking nuclear bomb threatened to kill tens of thousands, but he was _mocking_ her for wanting to do something to stop it. Misao felt a mighty swell of rage rising in her chest.

"Hyuga, how long until the thing blows?" she asked, forcing herself to sound calm.

"Given the current rate that the core temperature's increasing, the MAGI estimate that it'll be at least a half an hour until meltdown occurs," the technician answered.

Misao nodded. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

The Fourth Child's face was blank as she left the bridge, it was blank as she walked through the halls of NERV headquarters, and it was blank as she entered the girls locker room.

Once she was inside, however, her pretty face twisted into an expression of pure rage. With a scream, Misao kicked one of the locker doors as hard as she could. She could feel the impact run through her entire leg, but she didn't care. She had dented the locker door, which made her feel a bit better, but the effect it had on her molten rage was about as significant as flinging ice cubes into a volcano would have been.

For a good fifteen minutes, Misao did her best to destroy the girls locker room as she threw a massive fit, releasing her anger upon the metallic cabinets. She was furious with the commander, but she was equally enraged by her inability to do anything about this situation.

In a way, it was almost a relief to just lose control like this. She had been half-expecting to just go completely nuts for a while now, and it was good to get it over with.

Finally, she ran out of energy and had to cease her tantrum. The edge had been taken off her rage, rendering it controllable, but that was all her brief frenzy had managed to accomplish.

Panting with exertion, Misao surveyed the room. She hadn't managed to do that much damage, since nothing in the locker room was exactly what one would call fragile. However, she was sure she'd catch hell from the maintenance people, and possibly even receive a bill for the damages.

Oh well. She could afford it with her pilot's salary.

Taking a deep breath, Misao left the locker room and returned to the bridge. Shinji and Ritsuko both gave her questioning gazes as she walked in, but she didn't offer any kind of explanation. Instead, she just turned to look at the main screen, which still displayed Jet Alone.

Of all the negatives that came with being turned back into a teenager, this had to be the worst, Misao thought. She had forgotten how powerless children often were, and this was the worst possible way of being reminded.

_Too valuable to be allowed to go and make myself useful here, not valuable enough to be allowed to pilot Unit One in combat,_ she thought miserably. _This sucks! I wish I was an adult again!_

She took a deep breath and turned her attention back to the screen, watching the lumbering form of Jet Alone as it continued to walk forward smoothly, even as its power source grew closer and closer to self destruction.

_I wonder…I wonder if all adults so easily forget how it feels to be young and powerless?_ She thought, glancing at Shinji out of the corner of her eye.

Shinji didn't notice her stealing a quick look at him, lost in his own thoughts. He could easily sense the rage radiating off of her, despite her outwardly calm appearance. It reminded him of the intensity she'd displayed during the EVA combat simulations. _Maybe it wasn't the EVA that was doing it to her. Could it be that this is just a side of Misao that she doesn't show often?_

Everyone watched the main screen in silence, the hum of the MAGI supercomputers the only sound present besides the rumble of the steel titan's footsteps coming through the speakers.

"Estimated time to meltdown: sixty seconds," Aoba said grimly, typing in a few keystrokes and causing a countdown clock to appear in the upper right corner of the main screen.

_I wonder how many people are going to lose their mothers because of that thing_, Shinji thought.

_How many children will lose their fathers because they wouldn't let me stop that thing?_ Misao wondered.

The countdown ticked lower and lower. Thirty seconds…twenty…ten…

"What the hell?" Aoba exclaimed. "Information from the JSSDF base in Old Tokyo is saying that the JA's safety systems have finally activated! The shut down rods have been inserted into the core and reactor temperature is dropping. The JA is shutting down!"

Moments later, the giant robot on the screen finally ceased its steady gait, the long metal rods that protruded out of the upper section retracting back into its body. Everyone on the bridge watched in stunned surprise. Save for three individuals, of course.

"Stand down from second stage alert," Gendo order calmly.

"Roger," the bridge technicians said, getting to work.

"You three are free to go," Maya told the pilots.

Still feeling a little shocked at the near disaster, Shinji and Misao just nodded and left the bridge, along with Rei, who was quiet as always. The three pilots were silent as they left headquarters, and only said the barest good-byes when Rei's course diverged from that of Shinji and Misao.

In fact, it wasn't until Shinji and Misao were only about a block away from their apartment that Shinji finally spoke up. "I guess it was lucky that the safety systems finally kicked in," he commented.

"Luck had nothing to do with it," Misao said with surprising bitterness. "The Jet Alone was sabotaged to malfunction like that, scare the hell out of everyone, and then stop at the last second. And NERV is the organization that did it."

Shinji's eyes widened. "What? But why? How?"

"To avoid being turned into a reserve force in this war," Misao said. "Of course, I can't prove it, and nobody else will be able to prove it, either. But it worked out too well for NERV, and machines just don't pull that kind of crap unless they're told to."

She paused for a long moment. "I wonder if Maya knew about this."

Shinji Ikari was not the most perceptive person in the world, especially when it came to other people, but even he realized what Misao was really wondering. If she were still the Operations Director, would they have let her in on the black op to sabotage the JA?

Unfortunately, Shinji had no response for the question behind the question. "I don't know," he said. "And I doubt Maya would tell us if she was in on it."

"Yeah, you're right," Misao sighed as they entered their apartment building. "Shinji-kun…do you ever feel powerless?"

He blinked at the strange change in topic as they got into the elevator. "Well, yeah, I used to feel that way a lot," he admitted, wondering why she even felt the need to ask. "Not so much now, though."

"Even when you're piloting EVA?" she pressed.

"Well, yeah," Shinji replied.

_I guess that's not much of a surprise,_ Misao thought. _Considering the way his Father blackmailed him into getting into Unit One for the First Battle of Tokyo-3._

"I'm sorry, Shinji-kun," Misao said as the elevator doors opened.

"Huh? What for?" he asked, clearly confused.

"I never understood how you must have felt," she said. "Being forced to pilot EVA and everything."

That was an understatement, she mused. Back when she was still the Operations Director, she'd tried to empathize with Shinji's situation, she really had, but she hadn't truly been able to appreciate how out of control his world must have felt. Heck, just before she'd climbed into Unit One that first time, the only thing that had been going through her head was the incredible _power_ that Shinji got to wield.

It wasn't until she'd had a small taste of that powerlessness herself that she felt she could imagine it.

"It's all right, I understand," Shinji said with a small smile. "I guess it's pretty easy to forget what's it's like to be a kid, when you're an adult in charge of so much stuff at a place like NERV."

Misao smiled. Shinji was so forgiving; it was like he was physically incapable of bearing a grudge. This trait might not always serve him well, Misao knew, but she found it to be one of his more endearing qualities.

_Oh no, not _again! She thought as she felt her face heat slightly.

"Are you all right, Misao?" Shinji asked, frowning slightly. "You look a little flushed. Do you think you might be coming down with something?"

"No, no. I feel just fine," she said, eager to reassure him and change the topic. "So, what's for dinner, Shinji-kun?"

* * *

Author's Notes: A short chapter, as I said, and not a whole lot of action. I really couldn't see NERV allowing Misao to try and turn off Jet Alone this time around. They didn't really want her to try in canon Eva, and this time they had an excuse to stop her. And I doubt Maya would be willing to plunge into the out of control nuclear death robot like Misato did.

Still, I felt I couldn't just skip Jet Alone. It was a very Misato-centric episode in the anime, and it's more or less my last chance to have Shinji and Misao interacting before Asuka enters the picture. Plus, I admit I just really liked the whole thing where Shinji shut down the photo business.

Anyway, next up is the arrival of Asuka and Kaji, along with the Sixth Angel, of course.

Dragoon Galaxy, I enjoy doing whatever I think is funny in my omakes. Of course, this being a Shinji/Misato fic, that generally means giving Shinji nosebleeds. :P

Animefan29, well, I certainly won't ignore the characters besides Shinji and Misao, including Rei. And since they're different from how they were in canon, their relationships with the other characters will change accordingly.

Thanks to all my readers and reviewers.

* * *

Omakes

That time

"I volunteer for this mission, sir," Misao said firmly.

"No, as one of the EVA pilots, you are far too valuable to risk in such a manner," Gendo said flatly. "And in any case, I don't think anyone makes radiation suits in children's sizes."

Misao flushed slightly at the jab, then her jaw clenched as she thought about what Commander Ikari was doing. Not only was the man sitting by as a walking nuclear bomb threatened to kill tens of thousands, but he was _mocking_ her for wanting to do something to stop it. Misao felt a mighty swell of rage rising in her chest.

"Hyuga, how long until the thing blows?" she asked, forcing herself to sound calm.

"Given the current rate that the core temperature's increasing, the MAGI estimate that it'll be at least a half an hour until meltdown occurs," the technician answered.

Misao nodded. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

The Fourth Child left the bridge…then reentered it, but this time on the highest level, the one where the Commanders were. Gendo scowled and got to his feet. "Pilot Katsuragi, what are you—?"

He didn't get any further before Misao's foot slammed into his groin. Gendo's mouth opened, but he had no breath with which to scream. The Supreme Commander of NERV (and Bastard Supreme), slowly collapsed to the floor, where he writhed weakly in pain.

Shinji, and every other male in the command center, couldn't help but wince in sympathy.

_Well, now I know for sure that I'll never have a little brother,_ he thought.

Aoba suddenly leaned over to him. "It's that time of the month for her, isn't it?" he whispered.

"Uh…looks like it," Shinji said, sweat dropping.

* * *

Auto maintenance?

"So you'd really be willing to maintain this car for years?" Misao asked hopefully.

The auto mechanic, a tall, slim man with black hair and long sideburns smiled. "Why, sure, I'd be happy to do it!"

"Oh, thank you!" Misao said, thrilled to have found a mechanic willing to take on the task. "I, uh, won it in a…lottery, but as you can see I'm too young to drive it, so I need someone to take care of it until I'm old enough to drive again. I mean…I _don't_ mean again!"

_Great, now he thinks I'm crazy,_ Misao thought, sweat dropping.

The mechanic was eyeing her oddly, but thankfully he didn't seem all that perturbed.

Before either of them could say anything, a stunning brunette emerged from the room behind the garage, wearing the same kind of oil stained jump suit as the mechanic. Not that even the baggy work clothes could hide the woman's bodacious figure.

_Woah, I think she's even bigger than I was!_ Misao thought.

"Oh, we have a customer?" she asked.

"We sure do!" the mechanic said. "This little lady wants us to take care of this Renault Alpine for her."

"I see," the brunette, smiling.

"Well, here are the keys," Misao said, handing them over to the mechanic. "I'll pay you every month for your services. Thanks again!"

The mechanic and the brunette bid good-bye to her, and Misao went on her way, smiling cheerfully. She was almost at the train station where a man in a khaki trench coat and fedora approached her.

"Excuse me, miss, can I ask you a quick question?" he asked.

"Sure, I guess," Misao said with a shrug.

"Thank you. You see, I'm a detective on an international mission, and I'm on the trail of this man!" he said, producing a photograph. "This man is an infamous master thief!"

Misao paled. "I just gave him the keys to my car!"

"Your car?" the detective blinked. "Never mind! Just take me to him before he escapes!"

"Right!"

Misao led the detective back to the auto shop, where they were just in time to see her car explode out of the garage, the two "mechanics" behind the wheel, only now they had shed their jumpsuits. The woman was now in a form fitting pink dress, and the man was wearing a suit with a red jacket.

"See, Fuji-cakes! I told you I'd replace your car!" the master thief laughed as they sped away.

"Curse you, Lupin the Third!" Zenigata shouted as they drove off. "I'll catch you yet!"

Misao blinked, trying to hold back the tears. "M-My car…"

(Random fact that I'm almost positive is true: Misato's car being a Renault Alpine was a tribute to the anime _Lupin III_. Fujiko Mine had the same type of car.)


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

Chapter Six: **Encounter at Sea/Maya Strikes!**

"_Relax_, Maya," Misao urged, the tone of her voice betraying just how close she was to losing her patience.

Ever since Operation Amaterasu, Misao had been trying to mold Maya into a better Operations Director, taking the "younger" woman on as her protégé, more or less.

Unfortunately, she was gradually coming to the conclusion that Maya simply wasn't command material and never would be, regardless of how much she was nurtured for it.

It wasn't that Maya didn't have the brains for it. No, Misao had known that Maya was bright from square one; you didn't become one of the top bridge technicians at a place like NERV without some serious intelligence, after all, especially at such a young age. And Misao's time spent with Maya had only served to further confirm that the short haired brunette had gotten in on her own merits, rather than because of her friendship with Ritsuko.

No, Maya's brains weren't the problem. The problem was that while she was good at following orders in high pressure situations, giving orders was quite a different story. Even during combat simulations, Maya took a bit too long to decide upon a course of action.

It didn't help one bit that Maya was so shy that the idea of having to deal with an Admiral of the UN Navy was causing her to nearly have a fit in the helicopter.

"Relax, right, relax," Maya said, taking a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself down.

Misao shook her head silently. She was starting to think it would be the best thing for everyone—including Maya—if Commander Ikari found a new Operations Director and demoted Maya back to her position as a bridge tech.

But Gendo had been dragging his feet about that, much as he'd dragged his feet about having Maya replace her. Misao's transformation seemed to have caught the Commander of NERV, a man who hadn't been flustered in the least by the Third Angel's appearance at a time when NERV had exactly zero active EVA pilots, surprisingly flat footed.

"I don't understand, what is there for her to be nervous about?" Shinji asked from his seat next to Misao, a trace of annoyance in his voice.

Misao hadn't told him the purpose of their little day trip, instead claiming that they were off to enjoy a brief sail on a "cute little boat." The Fourth Child had even tried—unsuccessfully—to cajole the new Operations Director into allowing Toji and Kensuke to come along, in order to further the illusion that the trip was purely for recreation. She wanted the exact nature of their excursion, and impending arrival of the Second Child, to be a surprise.

Asuka was a nice enough girl at heart, Misao mused. To be sure, she had her issues, but then again, so did Shinji. Hell, so did Misao herself. And Asuka's past was so shockingly similar to that of the Third Child…

_Maybe they'll hit it off,_ she thought. _It would help both of them a lot, I think, to have someone._

She found a part of her didn't like the idea of Shinji and Asuka becoming an item, didn't like it _at all_. She wasn't sure why she felt this way…but she could take a pretty good guess.

Which was why Misao decided against examining the feeling more closely, not wanting her suspicions confirmed. Instead, she sighed softly and tried to enjoy the flight as the helicopter made its way toward the UN fleet.

* * *

Meanwhile, aboard the super carrier _Over the Rainbow_, two people who were most certainly not members of the ship's crew waited for the helicopter that was carrying the Third and Fourth Children to arrive. And while they waited, they spoke.

"I just don't get it," Asuka said. "Misato was my guardian in Germany for over two years, and she never mentioned any cousin Misao to me."

Kaji took one final drag from his cigarette before flicking it over the railing and into the ocean. "Misato has never liked talking about her family very much," he pointed out.

Which was true enough, he thought, when it came to her father, or the pain her mother had experienced because of him. Otherwise, she was no less likely to bring up her family than any other person.

Asuka, being exceptionally intelligent and knowing Misato quite well herself, didn't buy this explanation. Just like she didn't buy it the dozens of other times they'd had this conversation since the news of the Fourth Child had reached NERV Germany.

"She talked about her mom a lot," said the Second Child. "And she never mentioned having any aunts, and only one uncle, a guy she described as an uber-nerd who'd probably never been laid."

_And if she had a cousin named Misao, she would have brought her up, at least for the sake of having a laugh at how unimaginative the girl's parents were,_ Kaji added silently.

The spy shrugged. "I don't have an answer for you, Asuka," he said. "Hopefully, we'll be able to solve the mystery today."

Asuka nodded. "Well, I'm going down to the deck. They should be here soon," she said, then glommed onto his arm and gave him her best cute smile. "Want to come with me, Kaji?"

Kaji merely grinned in response. "You go on ahead, I'll stay here for a bit."

Asuka pouted cutely, and again, Kaji saw right through it. "Fine," she said, sighing gustily. "I'll just go down all by myself."

Kaji smirked slightly as he watched Asuka go. He wondered if the Second Child could have wrapped him around her little finger, were he about fifteen years younger. He liked to think not, but admitted it was a distinct possibly that she could have.

He almost felt bad for the unwitting Japanese boys that Asuka was soon to be released upon. Almost.

The spy shook his head, turning his thoughts to the current mystery of the Fourth Child and the former Operations Director. Kaji genuinely couldn't figure out what the hell Gendo Ikari was up to with that. Indeed, the only thing he felt sure about was that Gendo Ikari was up to something, and the story he had told everyone was just that, a story.

In addition to the fact that Misato had never mentioned this supposed cousin of hers, Kaji knew she hadn't been transferred to the Fourth Branch. Transferring Misato to China wouldn't have made any sense; the violet haired woman didn't speak Mandarin or any other Chinese dialect. Despite this, Kaji had checked with his contacts in NERV China, and they had confirmed that no one named Katsuragi had joined their ranks.

The problem was, he couldn't figure out what Gendo was up to. So far as bizarre maneuvers went, this one was definitely somewhere in the top five, if not outright at the top.

Had they found the Fourth Child, but changed her identity? It would make sense, if she were some kind of juvenile delinquent. NERV's public image wasn't exactly glowing; they would want to make the pilots seem as palatable as possible in the event that information about them leaked out to the public.

But then why the name Misao Katsuragi? And why did Misato vanish? If they'd gotten rid of her in some attempt to add credibility to the part of the story that she and her cousin didn't get along, it was a very weak attempt at the cost of a good officer. If they'd gotten rid of her because Misato and the Fourth Child, whoever she really was, truly didn't get along, then why had she seemingly disappeared?

If it was because they had, for some reason, gotten rid of her _permanently_, well then, someone was going to pay, he thought, clenching his fist.

_Putting the cart before the horse, Ryoji, _he chided himself.

True enough. Right now, the whole mystery just represented another part of the hidden truth he had to uncover, not the need for revenge. Indeed, other things worthy of his interest had been going on lately, after all. SEELE had suddenly shown a renewed interest in Adam, studying the embryonic Angel far more closely than they had in many years. He had barely been able to steal the First Angel and replace it with the dummy encased in bakelite without getting caught.

Could the two events be related somehow? Kaji couldn't see how, but so much of what was currently going was a mystery to him that he wouldn't be surprised if they were.

He took a deep breath, centering himself so he gave the impression of a man without such weighty thoughts on his mind before slowly striding off.

* * *

"_That's_ your cute little boat?" Shinji asked. "It's enormous!"

Misao grinned, amused by her charge's shocked reaction. "That's the super carrier _Over the Rainbow_," she said. "It's a rust bucket from before the Second Impact. Personally, I'm surprised it can still float."

"But why are we here?" Shinji asked curiously.

"What, I can't take you out on a little date now and then?" Misao asked with a little giggle.

"Misao," Shinji said, giving her a level stare. However, his obvious blush ruined the effect completely.

"You'll find out when we get there," Misao promised him with a smirk.

Shinji just sighed in a long suffering sort of way that even Maya had to giggle at.

A few minutes later, the MiG-26 Transport Helicopter touched down on the _Rainbow_'s flight deck, the huge, heavily modified aircraft drawing attention from more than a few of the deckhands present.

"Ah, breathe that salty sea air!" Misao said as she hopped out of the helicopter.

Shinji said nothing, turning his head this way and that as he searched in vain for some clue as to why they were on the flagship of a massive UN naval fleet, seeing nothing but what seemed to be the usual equipment and activities for a modern warship.

_Kensuke would be loving this if he were here,_ Shinji mused as his gaze swept over the massive guns and radar dishes of the huge carrier.

Maya held her hand up, shielding her eyes from the sun's glare as she too scanned the ship, having a much better idea than the Third Child as to what she was looking for.

"There she is," she announced, breaking into a brisk walk.

"Who?" Shinji asked, as he and Misao got in step behind their commanding officer.

"Good, I was hoping she'd come to meet us," Misao said, ignoring Shinji.

"Who?" he asked again, a little more forcefully this time.

Again, they both ignored him, drawing out the suspense for as long as possible, it would seem. Shinji rolled his eyes, feeling amused and mildly annoyed at once. He would've expected this from Misao but not from Maya.

Finally, Shinji spotted something that definitely was out of place onboard the ship. Or, more accurately, someone. Standing a few hundred feet away from them was a teenage girl in a yellow sundress. The red clips in her auburn hair looked suspiciously like A-10 connectors to Shinji's eye.

He also couldn't help but notice that her figure was rather…well developed for her age, though she was slightly behind Misao in that regard, just enough for the difference to be easily apparant.

"Hello, Soryu-san!" Maya called, waving.

"Hello!" the girl called back. "You must be the new Operations Director. Captain Ibuki, right?"

"Yes, that's me," Maya said with a nod, as they drew close enough that they no longer needed to shout to hear one another. "It's nice to meet you, Soryu-san."

"Oh, please, Asuka will be fine," she said magnanimously.

Before Maya could make a reply, a powerful gust of wind blew across the deck, sending the skirt of Asuka's yellow sundress up to her waist and giving an excellent view of her panties to anyone who happened to be nearby.

Unfortunately for Shinji, he happened to be the only male who was both within visual range and striking distance of Asuka.

Cursing in German, the Second Child lashed out at him, slapping the stunned teenager hard enough to leave an angry red handprint on his face. Shinji, already slightly shocked from the surprise glimpse of Asuka's undergarments, could just blink dumbly in response to the unexpected slap.

Misao, on the other hand, was less than stupefied. "Asuka! What did you do that for?" she demanded.

"That was the viewing fee," Asuka sniffed. "Quite a bargain, nicht?"

Misao just sighed, knowing Asuka too well to bother arguing the point with her. _So much for the two of them hitting it off,_ she thought, trying to ignore the relief she felt at how turbulent Shinji and Asuka's first encounter was proving.

The Fourth Child gave Maya a nudge, causing her to jump slightly. "Oh, Shinji, Misao, this is Asuka Langley Soryu, the Second Child. Asuka, this is Shinji Ikari and Misao Katsuragi, the Third and Fourth Children, respectively."

Asuka ignored Misao for the moment, judging that the minor mystery that surrounded her could wait. Getting in her top rival's face took first priority.

"So, this is the famous Third Child," she said, leaning in close enough that Shinji reflexively leaned backwards a bit. "Not much to look at."

Shinji just frowned in response, unable to devise an adequate comeback. He wasn't exactly a veteran of verbal sparring matches, and the fact that Asuka was actually very attractive killed all the easy responses.

"I wasn't aware that a person's appearance had an effect on piloting capability," Misao spoke up with a small grin.

Asuka's superior expression faltered for a moment as she turned her gaze upon the Forth Child. "Ah, yes, Misao Katsuragi. Your cousin served as my guardian for a few years back in Germany," Asuka said. "She never mentioned you."

"I'm not surprised," Misao said, forcing a scowl. "Misato and I don't get along."

She planned to tell Asuka who she really was, of course, and soon at that. The German girl would probably figure it out soon anyway; already Misao had stumbled and referred to her by name before being introduced by Maya. But she couldn't explain things on the deck, surrounded by the rank and file sailors.

Maya cleared her throat, getting the attention of the three teenagers. "Come on, I need to go and speak with the admiral," she said, smiling nervously at the prospect.

* * *

Unfortunately for the fledgling Operations Director, the admiral in charge of the impressive fleet of ships wasn't in a kind or patient mood.

"NERV," he scowled, handing Maya's ID card back to her. "From your antics on the bridge I assumed you were the leader of this group of girl scouts. Obviously, I was mistaken."

Shinji scowled slightly at being referred to as a girl scout, increasingly wishing that Misao and Maya had just left him back at Tokyo-3 for this.

Maya cringed. "Uh, sorry, sir," she stammered, handing him a sheaf of papers. "Er, here are the specifications for the emergency power supply."

"You've wasted a trip!" the admiral snapped. "I'd never accede to any request to activate that damned toy at sea."

Maya swallowed, withering under the flag officer's angry glare. It wasn't until Misao subtly nudged her that she managed to force out a reply. "T-Think of it as a precaution, sir," she said.

"Hmph," the admiral snorted. "I can't believe that the entire Pacific fleet has been commandeered for the purpose of guarding a toy! It's madness!"

"Sorry, sir," Maya apologized again. "NERV will be out of your hair soon, sir, I assure you. In the meantime, please sign these transfer documents."

"Not yet," the admiral said darkly. "The EVA was entrusted to us by the Third Branch. You're not just going to waltz in here and do as you please, Captain Ibuki. The ocean is _our_ jurisdiction."

"I-I understand, sir," Maya said. "When will you sign the transfer papers?"

"When we've unloaded in New Yokosuka," the admiral answered flatly. "Until we've reached port, _you_ will follow _our_ orders."

"Of course," Maya said, saluting and then turning, hoping to make a hasty retreat from the belligerent admiral.

"Well, well, well, is it a requirement at NERV that the Operations Director be a beautiful woman?" asked an unshaven man who had seemingly just appeared in the doorway to the bridge.

Several people reacted at once to the man's sudden entrance on the scene.

The admiral snapped at him to stop inviting himself onto the bridge.

Shinji and Maya simply blinked, having no idea who he was.

Asuka let out of the type of squeal that only girls in their early teens seem capable of emitting. "Kaji!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands together in an almost prayer like gesture in her delight.

Misao turned to look at the unshaven man with an expression of pure horror…which slowly morphed into a rather wicked grin. Ryoji Kaji was a lot of things, she knew—such as a tramp, a chauvinist, and a complete pig—but he was certainly _not_ a pedophile.

Which meant that she was totally safe from his unwanted attentions. Hell, this little reunion might even be _fun_.

Kaji apologized to the admiral, then turned to Misao. "So you're Misao Katsuragi," he said, grinning. "I know your cousin rather intimately, and I must say that you're the spitting image of her. I'll bet you'll be as beautiful as she is in a few years."

Asuka's eyes flashed and she turned to glare venomously at Misao. She had regarded the Fourth Child as a curious mystery but not a real threat to her in any way. Now she was changing that evaluation, just not in the way she might have expected.

Misao had to work very hard not to show her amusement, finding the situation hilarious. Kaji was _not_ going to be happy at all when he found out the truth, and Asuka was unknowingly getting worked up over absolutely nothing.

"Ah, Kaji-san, I'm afraid that Misato never once mentioned you to me," she said, then had to stifle her laughter at the shocked look that briefly appeared on his face before he schooled his features.

"I believe we've harassed the admiral long enough," Maya said, all too aware of the flag officer's glare. "Let's clear the bridge."

The admiral didn't stop the NERV group as they left, despite the fact that he had not dismissed them. Indeed, he was nearly as glad to see them go as Maya was to escape the bridge.

"What security clearance level at NERV do you have, Kaji-san?" Misao asked as the group headed down a long hallway, unable to keep a smirk off her face.

"Gamma. Why?" Kaji replied.

The Fourth Child's smirk widened slightly. "Perfect," she said. "Let's go somewhere we can talk privately. There's something you and Asuka should know."

"All right, lead the way then, Katsuragi-chan," Kaji said gamely.

Minutes later found the five of them packed into an elevator that was really meant for only three people.

"So," Kaji began, doing his best to sound as suave as usual, despite being practically pressed against the doors, "I take it this classified information you're going to share with us has something to do with where your cousin really is?"

"You could say that," Misao said, a trace of her amusement with the whole situation seeping into her voice.

She then noticed that Maya looked incredibly uncomfortable, even more so than she had back on the bridge a few minutes ago. Misao frowned darkly as she quickly put the pieces together.

"Hey! Don't touch her!" Misao snapped.

"I can't help it!" Kaji protested.

The elevator reached the desired floor a few seconds later, and the group practically fell out of it, with the exception of Maya, who leapt out of the car, giving Kaji a withering look which didn't seem to bother him a bit.

The group proceeded to an officer's mess, which was currently unoccupied by anyone else. "Private enough for you, Katsuragi-san?" Kaji asked with a sloppy grin as he took a seat at one of the tables.

"It'll have to do, I guess," she said, taking the seat across from him and waiting for everyone else to get settled.

Maya, she noticed, took the seat that was on the opposite end and opposite side of the table from Kaji. Shinji sat between Misao and Maya, while Asuka quickly claimed the seat next to Kaji, looking ready to jealously defend it from the Fourth Child.

"So?" Kaji asked, a trace of seriousness finally making its way into his voice. "What happened to my Misato-chan?"

"I'm Misato!" Misao exclaimed with a bark of laughter, placing a hand on her chest. "There was an accident with Unit One, and it turned me back into a teenager!"

The look Kaji gave her in response made it plain that he wasn't sure if the Fourth Child was playing some kind of joke on him (possibly on Misato's behalf), or if she was slightly insane.

"Right," he said slowly. "Now, what did you really want to tell us?"

"It's true," Misao said, "and I can prove it."

She leaned across the table and whispered something into Kaji's ear. The unshaven man's eyes widened noticeably and he abruptly pulled back from Misao, quickly enough that the front two legs of his chair were briefly raised into the air before falling back to the floor.

"You swore you'd never speak of that again," Kaji said, giving her an accusing look.

A snort of laughter burst out of Shinji before he could stop himself. "God, Misao, do you have dirt on everyone?" he asked.

Misao shook her head, grinning wickedly. "No, just my friends…and this tramp here," she added after a moment's consideration, gesturing toward Kaji.

"So that's really Misato?" Asuka asked Kaji, wide eyed.

Kaji nodded. "Yes," he answered with a sigh. "Misato would _never_ tell what she just said to me to anyone else. She's as embarrassed by that particular incident as I am."

"Mein Gott, but how?" Asuka asked, turning to Misao.

Misao explained how Unit One had reacted on its own to her climbing inside the entry plug out of curiosity and what had happened afterwards, with a little help from Maya on the more scientific bits.

"Which means," Misao said, turned to Kaji again, "that if you try putting the moves on me like I'm sure you were planning on, I can have you arrested!"

Misao then proceeded to throw her head back and release a sound that could only be accurately described as cackling.

Shinji scooted away from Misao slightly, trading a confused glance with Maya as he did so, both of them quite ignorant of the romantic history Kaji and Misato shared. Asuka glared at Misao, not the least bit amused by her tormenting the man of her dreams. And Kaji just stared at Misao in disbelief, looking thoroughly deflated.

_This can't be real_, the spy thought. _This has got to be a dream! Yeah! That's it! This has got to just be some kind of nightmare!_

Finally, Misao stopped her triumphant laughter, more because her lungs were starting to protest than because her amusement had expended itself. Kaji was able to collect his wits a few seconds later.

"Well, I admit that not every woman I've ever met has been pleased with my attentions, but I've never known one to go to such lengths to avoid them," he said, grinning weakly.

"What can I say?" Misao asked sweetly. "You're worth it, Ryoji Kaji."

* * *

"Honestly, I don't know what's more shocking," Asuka commented later as she and Kaji stood on the side of the deck together, the spy having made a tactical retreat from the officer's mess and the Second Child following him. "That Misato got turned into a teenager by Unit One, or the way she spoke to you!"

Kaji grunted. Inside, the spy was still quietly reeling from the revelation of only a few minutes ago. "So, what do you think of the famous Third Child?" he asked, hoping to get Asuka off the subject of Misao for a while.

"He's boring," Asuka said dismissively.

"And yet, despite having laid eyes on an EVA Unit only weeks ago, Shinji Ikari's sync ratio has already exceeded sixty percent," Kaji said.

"Mein Gott!" Asuka exclaimed.

It had taken her years and years of training back at the Third Branch to achieve a synchronization ratio that high, and the Third Child had done it in mere months.

"Yes. I believe his initial sync ratio was somewhere in the forty percent range," Kaji added offhandedly.

The Second Child did some quick and dirty math in her head, calculating the rate at which Shinji's sync ratio was increasing. The result was…somewhat daunting, she grudgingly admitted to herself.

Asuka abruptly balled her hands into fists. She had expected that the Third would be full of himself after scoring three kills against the Angels, maybe even expect her to respect his "veteran" status. What she _hadn't_ expected was that he'd already be in hot pursuit of her sync scores, and by extension, her status as the world's best Evangelion pilot.

_All right, Third Child, the whole thing with Misato might have distracted me for a little while, but now I'm going to show you your place!_ Asuka thought. _And may _Gott_ have mercy on you if you're too stupid to _accept_ your place, because I sure as hell won't!_

"Excuse me, Kaji," she said, stalking off to find the Third.

* * *

Had it not been for the events of several minutes ago in the officer's mess, Shinji might have wondered why they took the elevator down to that floor when there was a perfectly good set of escalators in the ship, one of which they were currently riding upwards on. But as things were, he was occupied with more interesting mysteries.

"So, what was all that about?" Shinji asked.

Misao didn't need him to elaborate on his question. "We used to date in college, back when I was young and stupid," she said, scowling. "He's a chauvinist pig!"

Shinji snickered, and Misao turned to look at him with a frown. "What?"

He shrugged. "You look like you're fourteen and you're talking about how you were 'young and stupid' back in college," Shinji pointed out.

Misao grinned. "I'm gonna blow my cover if I keep that sort of thing up," she said ruefully.

Shinji was about to make a reply when a rather harsh voice cut him off. "Third Child!"

He looked up and saw Asuka standing at the top of the escalator with her hands on her hips, glaring down at him. "You're coming with me," she ordered in a tone that brooked no argument.

Frowning in confusion, he turned to Misao, conveying his bewilderment at the Second Child's demands with a mere look.

Misao just smirked, as if she knew exactly why Asuka was in a such a hostile mood and suddenly honing in on Shinji. "Go," she said. "I think Asuka needs to get this out of her system."

Wishing Misao would tell him what "this" was but unwilling to ask with Asuka right there, Shinji just shrugged and went off with the redhead.

* * *

Twenty minutes and a short dingy trip later, he was following Asuka into the canopy under which Unit Two rested, laying in a pool of purple coolant.

"Nice paint job," Shinji commented, still not entirely sure what the purpose of this whole thing was. "I didn't know it was red."

"That's not all that's different about Unit Two," she said meaningfully as she scampered in under the tarp, gesturing for him to follow.

Shinji stepped carefully along the bridge in the coolant, which was composed of empty metal barrels attached to wooden boards. Asuka was far less cautious, practically running across it and then climbing atop the scarlet EVA Unit, finally coming to a stop on the part of the armor which would be pulled back when the entry plug was ejected.

"Units Zero and One were the prototype and test type, respectively," Asuka proclaimed. "The fact that Unit One synchronized with an untrained pilot like you—not to mention that bizarre incident with it turning Misato into a teenager—is proof of that. However, Unit Two is a little different. My Unit Two is the world's first real Evangelion! Created for actual combat conditions, it's the final production modelll!"

Her voice shook as the ship quaked under their feet, coming dangerously close to sending her falling off her high perch.

"What was that?" Shinji asked. "An explosion?"

"Undersea shock wave!" Asuka answered. "And it sounded close!"

They both rushed out to the edge of the deck, gripping the safety railing. About a mile away was an enormous moving plume of water. Both teens watched in shock as it passed through a destroyer, slicing the mighty war ship neatly in two without slowing down.

"What is it?" Asuka asked.

"Angels," Shinji said grimly. "It has to be."

"Angels? You mean a real one?" Asuka asked, fear and anticipation shooting through her in equal measure, causing her skin to break out in goose bumps.

A number of sarcastic replies jumped to the forefront of Shinji's mind, but he squelched them. The Third Child mentally evaluated the situation they were now in. His final assessment was not good.

"We've got to get Unit Two up and fighting," he said. "That admiral will never agree to activate it, and I don't think Maya has the nerve to force the issue."

Asuka, to Shinji's surprise and mild trepidation, grinned in response. "Now's my chance," she said softly, more to herself than to him. "What are we waiting for, Third Child? Let's move it!"

* * *

Maya walked into the doorway to the _Rainbow_'s bridge and forced herself to speak. "Excuse me, sir, but the hostile appears to be an Angel and—"

"Get the hell off my bridge, Captain Ibuki!" the admiral snapped. "This is a combat situation!"

Maya let out a small squeak of terror and would have obeyed the order at once, if not for the fact that Misao was standing right behind her, blocking her retreat route. The Fourth Child gave the Operations Director a brief glare and pushed her forward, following Maya onto the bridge. The admiral and his flag captain were too preoccupied with the battle to take notice.

"All ships, fire at will!" the admiral ordered, determined to earn the glory of slaying an Angel for the UN Navy and put NERV in its place.

_This is pointless,_ Misao thought with a mental groan, burying her hands in her violet hair and pulling on it in sheer frustration.

They had to get Unit Two activated and fighting or the Angel was going to send the entire fleet to the ocean floor. Unfortunately, the admiral was far too stubborn to even consider it, Maya was looking like she wanted nothing more than to flee, and she didn't even know exactly where Asuka was at the moment!

She again cursed her age regression, wishing she was still an adult. The ability to get a little control over the situation would even be worth the infuriating passes Kaji had doubtlessly been planning to make at her.

"Communication from the _Othello_!" shouted the _Rainbow'_s radio officer. "EVA Unit Two is activating!"

"Say _what_?!" the admiral exclaimed.

"Yes!" Misao couldn't help but shout.

Everyone crowded the window facing the large freighter, watching as something very large began to move underneath the huge tarp that covered most of its foredeck.

The admiral let out a growl and rushed over to a nearby console, snatching up a small microphone. "Abort! Stop the EVA activation sequence! Now!"

To Misao's surprise, it wasn't Asuka who answered, but Shinji. "Sorry, sir, but we can't do that. The Angel has to be stopped, and only an EVA can beat it," the Third Child said, voice unusually firm.

_What the hell? Is Shinji piloting alone?_ Misao thought. _No, he couldn't be. Unit Two is programmed to accept voice commands from Asuka. He couldn't even get inside without her. And he said "we." They must be inside the plug together._

Unit Two suddenly leapt off the freighter, mere seconds before the Angel sliced through it, the tarp drawn around the scarlet war machine like a cloak. Misao let out a small sigh of relief; for a second she'd thought the Angel would get it before the Unit Two could get away and end the battle before it had even begun.

"Good lord," the flag captain groaned, peering at Unit Two through a pair of binoculars. "The EVA is still using the B-type equipment!"

"What?!" Maya, Misao, and the admiral exclaimed simultaneously, all of them only too aware of what that meant.

If Unit Two fell into the ocean, it would be helpless.

"Quick!" Asuka shouted over the radio, confirming Misao's earlier deductions. "Get the power socket onto the flight deck!"

Misao turned to Maya, glaring at the brunette and willing her to make it happen. Maya obviously saw the message in Misao's eyes, but she hesitated a moment, gathering her courage.

In that moment of hesitation, the flag captain let out a sigh and turned to his executive officer. "Do it," he ordered resignedly.

"This is nuts," the admiral grumbled, but didn't countermand the order as the XO got to work.

They watched as Unit Two, in an incredible and frightening display, made its way toward the _Over the Rainbow_, using the other ships as stepping stones as it leapt from one to another. It was amazing that the multi-ton killing machine didn't cause any of them to capsize as it jumped off of them.

"EVA Unit Two coming in for a landing!" Asuka announced jubilantly over the radio as the crimson giant made its final leap.

"All hands! Brace for impact!" the captain shouted.

Unit Two landed slightly off center, causing the ship to rock violently and sending several of the various planes on the super carrier's flight deck tumbling into the ocean. Everyone in the bridge cried out in fright and they grabbed onto whatever was available as the floor quaked beneath them.

"The target is approaching rapidly!" exclaimed the radar officer.

Misao forced herself back into a standing position and looked out the window, seeing the great white plume of water surging toward the super carrier. She clenched her fists tightly.

_Asuka, I hope you're as good as everyone says you are, because these are far from ideal circumstances for this battle,_ Misao thought.

"Switching to external power," Asuka announced as she deftly connected the enormous power socket to the plug in the EVA's back. "Switch completed."

The Angel's body finally began to crest over the surface of the water. Misao held back a gasp at the sight.

_It's huge!_ She thought.

The enormous, vaguely fish-like beast leapt out of the water, slamming right into Unit Two and landing on the deck of the _Rainbow_, causing the ship to again shake tumultuously and sending Misao crashing to the floor.

The Fourth Child jumped to her feet at once, looking out one of the now shattered windows of the bridge. To her surprise, not only had Unit Two not been thrown into the sea, but it was still on its feet. Only the progressive knife had been lost to the Angels attack, the blade sticking out of the deck out of Unit Two's reach, having sunk in almost to the hilt.

"My flight deck!" the admiral moaned.

"Yes!" Misao whispered.

_Looking good, Asuka!_ Misao silently cheered.

Then, as if Misao had jinxed them with the mere _thought_, Unit Two stepped onto one of the super carrier's aircraft elevators, which instantly buckled under the EVA's immense weight. Unit Two abruptly lost its balance and fell overboard, along with the Angel, which it still held a firm grip upon.

For a third time, the _Rainbow_ shook terrifically, all the windows on the bridge that had survived until now shattering, sending shards of glass raining down upon the mercifully vacant deck below. Misao barely noticed this, watching in horror as the thick, ultra-tough cable was dragged from one end of the deck to the other as it rapidly unwound, sweeping what few planes had escaped the earlier chaos into the sea as it was pulled to the left and right across the deck.

Mere seconds later, the cable ran out, sending a jolt, much milder than the previous ones, through the ship.

"EVA has lost the target!" announced the radar officer.

Misao rubbed her forehead as she desperately wracked her brain, trying to come up with solutions to the twin problems of Unit Two's predicament and having to work through the painfully timid figure of Maya.

A loud metallic clang broke her out of her brainstorming session, and she directed her gaze at the deck, where another aircraft elevator had just reached the 'top floor' carrying a fighter she recognized as some Yak variant.

"Hey, Ibuki! Katsuragi!" Kaji's voice boomed over a loudspeaker, transmitted from the a microphone in his helmet.

"Kaji!" Misao exclaimed, feeling a flare of hope and clasping her hands together, unconsciously mimicking a pose Asuka had struck not two hours ago.

Misao knew that despite his multitude of negative traits, Kaji had a surprisingly good head on his shoulders when it came to this sort of crazy situation, and he was not one to ever flinch in the face of authority. Perhaps with his help it would be possible to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

"Well, I have to make a delivery, so I'll just be taking off," he announced, shattering her hopes.

Misao opened her mouth, trying to scream at the bastard for abandoning them but unable to emit anything except a quiet, strangled sound as the Yak's engines came to life.

"Take care of the rest of this, Captain!" he called cheerfully as the plane took off and retreated into the sky.

Her left eye twitching, Misao clenched and unclenched her right hand repeatedly, unknowingly imitating her ward's nervous habit…and pretending that she was squeezing her ex-boyfriend's throat.

"The target is approaching Unit Two again!" the radar officer announced.

Misao leaned out the broken window, watching the undersea battle play out as best should could, a feeling of nausea rapidly building in her stomach. She was only vaguely aware of Maya silently leaning out behind her.

"Unit Two has entered the target's body!" said the radar officer.

_Oh god, they've been eaten! I have to do something! But what?_ Misao thought, continuing to draw a blank as she stared at the one sided battle unfolding.

"It's like Unit Two's a worm on the end of a fishing line," Maya commented softly, speaking for the first time since she'd entered the bridge.

"Fishing?" Misao whispered, Maya's words having caused inspiration to strike in the former Operations Director's mind.

Misao rapidly ran through a number of mental lists, taking stock of the situation and calculating if they had what was needed. After a moment's consideration, she decided that they did.

_Okay, now that I've got a plan, I've just got to see about executing it,_ she thought, grabbing Maya's wrist and pulling her toward the door. The new Operations Director looked confused but allowed herself to be dragged along. The admiral and flag captain were both too busy observing the fiasco the battle had become through their binoculars to take notice of the two ladies' departure.

"What is it, ma'am?" Maya asked once they were out in the hallway.

"I've got a plan on how to win this," Misao said, "but you're the one who has to get the admiral to cooperate. There's no way in hell he'll listen to me."

Maya swallowed. "I…I'm not sure that I can do it."

"Damn it, Maya!" Misao hissed, reaching up and grabbing the slight woman by the shoulders and shaking her. "I know you never asked for this job, but you _have_ to stand up to that cynical old bastard in there! If the Angel destroys Unit Two, Shinji and Asuka—two innocent children—are going to die! And the entire human race will probably follow!"

Maya hesitated for a moment, then her features shifted into an expression of determination. "What's the plan?" she asked.

* * *

Minutes later, Maya strode back onto the bridge. "Admiral, I'm assuming command of this fleet," she announced firmly.

"What?!" he demanded, spinning around to face her.

"You heard me," Maya said, looking the man squarely in the eye. "In the event of an Angel attack, NERV's military authority overrides your own. I am the most senior NERV officer present and an Angel is attacking. Therefore, I'm taking command."

"Why the hell should I relinquish command to you?" the admiral snapped.

"Because if you don't, you're going to become known as the worst commander in the history of naval warfare!" Maya barked, getting right in the man's face. "Because two EVA pilots, personnel who are absolutely vital to the defense of the Earth from the Angels will die if you don't. Because if you don't, I will personally see to it that the Secretary General of the UN demotes you all the way down to ensign, _if_ we live that long! There are plenty of reasons, sir. Take your pick!"

Standing behind Maya, Misao gaped in surprise. She had hoped that Maya would manage to appear confident enough to get the admiral willing to work with her, but she certainly hadn't expected Maya to jump right past assertiveness and straight to aggression.

_Now that's wearing your ovaries on the outside!_ Misao thought suddenly, a wry, proud grin slowly making its way onto her face.

"Fine," the admiral grumbled sullenly. "You have command, Captain Ibuki."

Maya nodded. "Thank you, sir," she said, striding over to the tactical overview screen. "Here's what we're going to do."

She calmly and firmly recited Misao's over-the-top plan for a point blank assault with the two remaining battleships, drawing an incredulous look from the admiral. "That's completely insane!" he protested.

"Perhaps," Maya admitted, "but it's the only possible way of destroying the Angel that I can think of. If you've got a better plan, please don't hesitate to speak up, sir."

"Very well," the admiral grumbled, going off to prepare the operation.

Maya picked up the microphone that was being used to communicate with the Children inside Unit Two. "Soryu, Ikari, we have a plan," she said. "Whatever you do, don't let the Angel escape."

"Huh?" Shinji and Asuka asked in unison.

* * *

Misao wrung her hands together as the operation commenced, nearly giving herself whiplash as she tried to watch the tactical overview screen and the power cable at the same time.

"The battleships have been abandoned and set for remote firing," the flag captain said. "The Kingston valves have been opened. They're sinking."

Maya nodded and held the microphone up to her mouth. "Ikari, Soryu, do you understand the operation?"

"We'll do the best we can," Shinji vowed, sounding suspiciously…pained as he said it.

"Reverse the cable!" Maya commanded.

The powerful engine inside the machine that held the power cable roared to life, reeling it back in and dragging the Angel and Unit Two with it.

"EVA has started to surface! T-minus 70 seconds to contact," the radar officer reported.

Misao allowed herself to bite her nails as the clock rapidly ran down and the Angel's mouth remained closed.

_Damn you, come on! _She thought desperately. _You can do this! I know you can!_

The two submerged battleships slammed into the Angel, and Maya wasted no time. "Fire!" she commanded.

The mighty guns of the old but proud vessels erupted one last time, the shells slamming straight into the Angel's scarlet core and utterly destroying the marine monster. A massive geyser erupted from where the Angel had been, seeming to reach the heavens.

For several gut wrenching seconds, Misao thought that Shinji and Asuka had failed. That _her_ plan had killed those two kids.

"Look! It's Unit Two!" Maya exclaimed, pointing.

Misao looked and saw the EVA flying through the air, having been blasted straight into the air by the force of the explosion that killed the Angel, its power cord severed. The red giant's limbs flailed wildly through the air as it tried to direct its descent, until it finally managed to land on the deck of the _Rainbow_, shutting down as its batteries ran dry seconds later. Misao let out a sigh of profound relief.

_Thank god he's all right,_ she thought, then frowned as she played back the thought in her mind. _Thank god _they _are all right._

* * *

"My, my, my, quite spectacular," Ritsuko commented, as she watched a battle scarred war ship pull into port from the back of a military Jeep.

Seated next to her, Maya just let out a groan. Ritsuko turned to her former protégé, her wry smile soon fading into an expression of sympathy. Maya looked utterly exhausted, her body totally limp like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

"You okay?" Ritsuko asked.

"Yes, sempai," Maya answered. She then hesitated for a moment, before adding, "Would you think less of me if I said I could dearly use a stiff drink right about now?"

Ritsuko laughed. "Well, I might be a little concerned that getting Misato's old job is slowly turning you into her somehow," she teased, "but given the circumstances I'd have to say you earned it. I'll even treat you to a drink when we get back to Tokyo-3."

Maya instantly sat up straight and grinned stupidly at Ritsuko. "Really, sempai?" she asked, eyes shining.

"Um, yeah," Ritsuko answered.

The blonde's obvious confusion made Maya realize just how overly enthusiastic she'd been, and she blushed. "Arigato," she said, returning to her earlier position.

"Hey! Hey wait!" Asuka called, running up to the Jeep, which quickly came to a stop. "Where's Kaji?" she asked as she drew near.

"Not here," Maya grumbled, not bothering to sit up again. "He commandeered a plane and ran off only seconds after you went overboard."

"Oh, I wanted him to see me kill the Angel," Asuka whined, walking off.

"What that girl sees in that man, I will never understand," Maya said in a sotto voice, Ritsuko only chuckling in response.

Meanwhile, Shinji was disembarking from the _Over the Rainbow_, still clad in Asuka's bright red plug suit. Misao, waiting at the bottom of the ramp for him, let out a burst of laughter.

"That's a good look for you, Shinji-kun," she teased.

"Can it," he grumbled, feeling tired and grouchy now that the adrenaline rush from the battle had worn off. "My clothes went down with the freighter, so I'm stuck in this until we get home."

Misao let one more giggle out before she decided to ease up on Shinji. He'd had a rough day after all. "I know," she said. "Let's find someone to take us home so you can change."

"Works for me," he said with a nod. "So, I'm guessing it was you who came up with the plan that saved us."

"Really?" Misao asked with a mischievous grin. "Why, whatever gave you that idea?"

"Something about that whole plan just screamed 'Misao' to me," he said, returning her grin. "Besides, Operations Director or not, you're the one who's been coming up with all the plans so far."

"That's true, and it was my plan," Misao confirmed. "Though I'm starting to think that Maya might not be as helpless as Ops Director as I used to believe."

On that point, Shinji could only shrug. He'd been unconscious during the planning and preparation of Operation Amaterasu, and he of course hadn't been around when the plan that won this battle was forged.

"How do you manage to come up with these crazy plans, anyway?" he asked. "I could never think up anything like the operations you created for the last two Angels."

"It's not that hard," Misao said, wagging a finger in the air. "I just calmly list all the resources I have to deal with the problem in my head and try and see what stands out. That usually gives me an idea. In fact, sometimes it just hits me like a bolt of lightning."

Shinji just shook his head as the two of them climbed into a Section Two car. He wondered if Misao realized just how remarkable she could be at times.

* * *

Author's Notes: And so we have the arrival of Asuka and Kaji. I realize that most of the Shinji/Misato fans out there aren't fond of them, and I'm going to be playing to that somewhat. However, I won't have them doing nasty things I don't believe they'd do. Which is a large part of the reason that Kaji won't be trying to rape Misao here, as happened in "Misato's Second Childhood." Part of the reason I started this so early in the timeline was so I'd have no need to do something like that to accelerate her relationship with Shinji.

I hope no one minds the way I handled this battle too much, but I couldn't see it being all that different at Shinji and Asuka's end from how it happened in canon and decided to focus on how things unfolded on the bridge instead.

Orionpax09, while Misao telling Shinji about the sabotage might have been a bit off, I don't think it's _that_ improbable. They're closer than they were in canon and he has it much more together, so I think she'd be more likely to confide in him. And she's a teenager here, which means there are fewer checkpoints between her brain and her mouth.

Ryousanki, while I don't think Misao would be very adverse to modeling for Toji and Kensuke's little photo business, she makes too much money from NERV to bother. :)

Gunman, remember, in Shinji's mind, staying ahead of Misao and thus keeping her out of EVA is the least selfish thing he can do.

As always, thanks to all my readers and reviewers.

* * *

Omakes

Ooo, catfight!

"So that's really Misato?" Asuka asked Kaji, wide eyed.

Kaji nodded. "Yes," he answered with a sigh. "Misato would _never_ tell what she just said to me to anyone else. She's as embarrassed by that particular incident as I am."

"Mein Gott, but how?" Asuka asked, turning to Misao.

"Which means," Misao said, turned to Kaji again, "that if you try putting the moves on me like I'm sure you were planning on, I can have you arrested!"

Misao then proceeded to throw her head back and release a sound that could only be accurately described as cackling.

Asuka glared at Misao, not the least bit amused by her tormenting the man of her dreams. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore. "Shut up, bitch!"

Misao immediately stopped laughing. "Bitch?! How dare you!"

The Fourth Child proceeded to leap across the table at the Second, and the two engaged in a furious brawl, fists and feet flying everywhere.

Shinji leapt to his feet. "Misao!"

Before the Third Child could intervene, Kaji placed a hand on his shoulder, stopping him. "What are you doing?" the unshaven man asked.

"I'm going to break them up!" Shinji exclaimed.

Kaji shook his head. "Ah, my young padawan, much to learn you still have."

Shinji's eye twitched. "Nani?"

* * *

Lady in red

Meanwhile, Shinji was disembarking from the _Over the Rainbow_, still clad in Asuka's bright red plug suit. Misao, waiting at the bottom of the ramp for him, let out a burst of laughter.

"That's a good look for you, Shinji-kun," she said.

"Can it," he grumbled, feeling tired and grouchy now that the adrenaline rush from the battle had worn off. "My clothes went down with the freighter, so I'm stuck in this until we get home."

"No, I'm serious!" Misao said, then her voice suddenly became sultry and seductive. "You look _really_ good in red, Shinji-kun…"

Shinji sweat dropped, honestly not sure whether she was teasing this time. She probably was, but on the off chance that she wasn't…

"No," he decided aloud, shaking his head. "It's just too weird."

With that, the Third Child tromped off, intent on going home and getting back in men's clothes.

"Damn," Misao cursed softly as she followed him.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

Chapter Seven: **Synchronization/Realizations in the Dark**

The cross compatibility experiments were a series of tests that NERV had planned to conduct by placing the Children into Evangelion Units and observing their synchronization ratios. Originally, the intended purpose of these experiments had been solely to further the development of the Dummy Plug System.

However, such an experiment was currently being conducted, despite the fact that Dummy System wasn't far enough along yet that it could be of help to that project. And inside the control room where the test was being monitored, two EVA pilots waited, observing for different reasons. One was worried about the EVA Unit that was being used in the test, while the other fretted over the pilot inside said EVA.

"I don't see why you had to let her into my Unit Two!" Asuka complained for what seemed like the thousandth time.

Shinji, standing silently next to the Second Child, scowled but didn't bother saying anything.

Dr. Akagi sighed. "Asuka, I've already explained this to you," the scientist said tiredly. "We need to see whether Misato's affinity with Unit One is the rule or the exception."

"Why exactly is that important, Dr. Akagi?" Shinji asked, speaking up for the first time since the test had begun.

Ritsuko started slightly at the sound of the Third Child's voice. "Because if Misao can achieve a decent ratio with Unit Two, there's no reason she shouldn't be able to synchronize with other Evangelion Units as well. And if that's the case, Commander Ikari can demand that the First Branch transfer Unit Three to us."

_Unit Three?!_ Shinji mentally shrieked.

"I don't see why you need to perform this test for that," Asuka grumbled.

"Contrary to popular belief, NERV isn't just one big, happy family," Ritsuko said dryly. "Considerable rivalries exist between certain branches and central. The Americans would be extremely reluctant to accede to any demand to give us Unit Three, especially since it's not entirely finished yet. They demanded the right to construct Units Three and Four."

Shinji was vaguely aware of Asuka saying something in response, but he didn't really listen to the redhead. The Third Child felt sick to his stomach as he thought about what this meant.

If Misao could pull a decent sync score with Unit Two, he would have failed on the task he set out for himself, and the Fourth Child would be in a much peril from the Angels and the EVA's as the other three pilots.

"It's been two hours," Sakura announced. "The first cross compatibility experiment has been completed."

"So how'd I do?" Misao asked, a communications window from Unit Two popping up on the control room's main monitor.

"Your average synchronization ratio over the two period was eleven percent," Sakura said apologetically.

Shinji let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding in his trepidation.

Asuka smirked. _Of course. What were they expecting to happen? A rookie pilot like Misao might be able to sync with the buggy test type EVA, but not my Unit Two!_

Fortunately, the triumphant Second Child had the good grace not to vocalize her thoughts.

"Eleven percent? But that's even worse than how I did in Unit Zero!" Misao exclaimed, clearly dismayed.

"Sorry, Misato," Ritsuko said. "But it looks like only Unit One likes you."

* * *

Meanwhile, in a room that was merely known as "the lair" to most of NERV, the two commanders of the secret organization were pondering the results of a much different test.

"You have read Dr. Akagi's report on the Adam embryo?" Gendo asked.

"Yes," Fuyutski said. "Rather underwhelming to say the least."

During Second Impact, Misato Katsuragi had absorbed approximately a kilogray of the unique radiation created by Adam. In his diminished state, however, the First Adam emitted roughly a milligray of the necessary radiation energy.

In other words, in his current form, the amount of radiation produced by Adam was too little for the purpose of potentially restoring someone's youth by several degrees of magnitude.

"Could Unit Zero or Two be made to generate the amount of Adam radiation that we need?" Fuyutski asked.

"No, not without an S2 organ at any rate," Gendo replied.

"But Unit One somehow generated enough of its type of radiation to neutralize all of what Katsuragi had absorbed," Fuyutski pointed out.

Gendo arched an eyebrow. "You're being awfully persistent about this, Sensei," he commented, then smirked slightly. "Were you hoping to turn the clock back a few years yourself?"

"It would be nice to be rid of this damnable arthritis," Fuyutski said with a small, sardonic grin, slowly clenching one of his gnarled hands into a fist. "But I'm surprised you're showing so little enthusiasm for this project."

"I have…reconsidered the potential implications of this project," Gendo said.

"Oh?"

"The old men have always seen Instrumentality as a means of achieving immortality," Gendo said. "If the fountain of youth becomes available to them…"

"You believe they would abandon their scenario?" Fuyutski asked, surprised.

Despite Gendo's typically cynical view of SEELE, the Vice Commander knew that at least the bulk of the shadowy council truly believed in the talk of continuing the evolution of mankind and forever eliminating loneliness.

"It could easily be ruinous if even one of the old men decides to stop Instrumentality," Gendo pointed out.

That was true enough, Fuyutski had to concede. The members of SEELE kept themselves anonymous to make it harder for them to strike at each other, but they _all_ knew enough about the scenario to end it, if they revealed it to the UN Security Council.

"So you intend to abandon this project?" the Vice Commander asked.

Gendo nodded. "In all but name, yes. It would look suspicious to many people within this organization if we to outright terminate it."

* * *

"Seriously? Again? After what happened last time?" Shinji asked, exasperation and incredulity clear in his voice.

"Well, we made so much money last time that we figured that it was worth risking the class rep's rage again," Kensuke explained, albeit a tad sheepishly.

"Besides, we would have gotten away with it last time, if you hadn't forced us to shut down, and that idiot Takeshi hadn't run his mouth in front of the class rep," Toji said, leveling an accusing look at Shinji.

Shinji failed to wither under the jock's gaze.

"You aren't going to shut us down again, are you, Shinji?" Kensuke pleaded. "Please, you don't know what it's like to be broke!"

The Third Child rolled his eyes. He considered pointing out that he hadn't always been an EVA pilot with a considerable salary but decided it would probably be useless.

"C'mon, Ikari," Toji said. "I don't think Soryu would really mind all that much. She seems to love attention, and she seems like a really nice girl."

"She's like an angel," Kensuke agreed with a dreamy sigh. "Uh…the good kind, not the bad kind."

Shinji had to stop himself from bursting out laughing at _that_ statement, though when he thought about it he really wasn't all that surprised that Toji and Kensuke were caught up in Asuka's spell.

The German "foreign exchange student" had made a huge splash at Tokyo-3 Municipal Junior High School, earning the attentions of nearly every male student, along with the envy or admiration (or both) of nearly every female student. By the end of her first day at school, she had already had her own horde of groupies (there was no other word that adequately described them in Shinji's mind), and it only seemed to be growing in number as time passed by.

Shinji didn't really see what all the fuss was about. Admittedly, Asuka was very attractive, but then again so was Misao. The German girl was also rather exotic, being a red headed Westerner, but Rei Ayanami also had an unusual, exotic look. Neither of them had any type of cult following.

_Maybe it has something to do with how differently she acts in school,_ Shinji thought with a wry grin, recalling his surprise at seeing how…affable she could be when she wanted to.

Of course, her status as an EVA pilot, which Asuka was more than happy to flaunt, probably helped. Though several people had doubted that she was truly an EVA pilot when, on her first day at school, she chose to sit with Hikari and her friends rather than at the "pilot's table."

This development had secretly amused Shinji until she'd stormed over and demanded he testify to her pilot status.

"You know what?" Shinji asked, turning his attention back to Toji and Kensuke. "If you want to play with fire, that's fine by me. Just don't say I didn't warn you if Asuka finds out and kills you."

With that rather ominous statement, he turned smoothly on his heel and headed off, leaving a pair of confused stooges behind him. Toji and Kensuke shrugged and continued operating their business.

Leaving his two male friends behind, Shinji went off in search of Misao and Rei. However, he was intercepted after walking only a few hundred yards.

"Guten morgen, Shinji!" Asuka called, walking up to him.

"Uh, guten morgen," Shinji replied hesitantly, guessing that the German phrase was some kind of greeting but far from sure.

"Hey, why so gloomy? I'm the most popular girl in school! You should feel privileged that I'm even talking to you!" Asuka proclaimed, flicking her thumb into his forehead to punctuate the statement.

_Yeah, I feel real privileged to have the attention of a girl who keeps _hitting_ me_, Shinji thought sourly. He didn't say anything, however, having learned long ago that the less he spoke, the less chance there was of him saying something hurtful. Or, in Asuka's case, something that caused her to hit him or start insulting him again.

In truth, though, the Second Child was something of an anomaly to Shinji, precisely because she _wasn't_ gloomy. After all, Shinji's reason for piloting EVA—to keep Misao from doing it—was partly justified in his mind by the fact that the great war machines seemed to leave whoever did so messed up and miserable.

It was a pretty easy thing to believe when just he and Rei were the pilots. Asuka, on the other hand, was obviously far from miserable. And if her loud boasts were to be believed, she'd been training longer than any of them, even Rei.

Still, between how belligerent she was and the fact that Shinji quite liked having a reason to pilot EVA, the Third Child didn't feel the need to revaluate his thinking much.

_Maybe EVA just messes up different people in different ways…_

"Hey!" Asuka snapped, jarring Shinji back to the present. "Pay attention, Third!"

"Sorry," Shinji apologized. "What were you saying?"

Asuka sighed theatrically. "I was asking you where the other one is. She's here, isn't she?"

Shinji blinked. "Other one?"

"The First Child, baka," Asuka explained. "What are you, stupid?"

"Oh, Rei Ayanami," Shinji said. "I was just looking for her. Yes, I think she's around here somewhere."

He scanned the schoolyard for a few seconds, finding Rei fairly quickly thanks to her blue hair. "There she is," he said, gesturing with a nod of his head.

Asuka turned and, clearly spying what he did, quickly departed without so much as a thank you or a goodbye, her groupies in tow. Shinji pinched the bridge of his nose, silently apologizing to Rei for unleashing Asuka upon her.

* * *

With precious few exceptions, Rei Ayanami regarded everyone at Tokyo-3 Junior High School with an attitude of complete indifference. Most of her classmates, if they bothered to try and guess what went on inside the strange girl's head at all, believed that she did this out of malice. This was untrue; Rei's air of indifference wasn't a mask concealing a contemptuous face; Rei's air of indifference wasn't a mask at all. Her classmates were irrelevant to her purpose, irrelevant to the commander's scenario, so she regarded them as unimportant. She didn't care about them, but nor did she wish ill upon them.

Curiously, she was developing emotions for Shinji and, to a lesser extent, Misao. Emotions which she could classify—tentatively—as friendship. This was much more than their status as pilots warranted, and it confused Rei. However, it was most definitely a limited phenomenon.

So, when someone's shadow cast the book she was reading into relative darkness, Rei didn't bother looking up. She merely moved the book a bit to the side to get it back into the light.

To Rei's mild annoyance, the shadow moved forward, again obscuring her book.

"Hello!" Asuka called cheerfully, finally forcing Rei to turn her eyes the Second's way. "You must be Rei Ayanami, the pilot of the prototype. I'm Asuka! Asuka Langley Soryu! The pilot of EVA Unit Two! Let's be good friends!"

"What for?" Rei asked.

"Because it would be…convenient!" Asuka said, waving a hand. "You know what I mean."

Rei paused, considering. She had developed emotional bridges with the other two pilots that she had deemed acceptable, even enjoyable. But would this be the same as those relationships? Pilots Ikari and Katsuragi's stated reasons for their friendship…

She realized with mild surprise that Pilots Ikari and Katsuragi had never stated any reason why they both tried to get close to her.

Logic stated, however, that it had not been for convenience's sake. Both Ikari and Katsuragi had been visibly uncomfortable in her presence in the beginning, yet both had persisted in spending time with her. No, they had not been her friend for their own gain.

But was it necessary that Pilot Soryu should pay some price for her friendship, as Ikari and Katsuragi had? Rei realized it would be selfish of her to demand such of everyone who wished her friendship.

_This is most confusing,_ she thought.

"Perhaps in time," Rei said, closing her book and standing. "Not now."

And with that, she walked off, leaving Asuka very confused. "Freakazoid," the Second Child commented to no one in particular.

Watching the scene from a safe distance away, Shinji could only chuckle at the foolishness of the Second Child, thinking she could so easily gain Rei Ayanami's friendship.

* * *

"You know, Maya, you really shouldn't be hiding away from everything here," Ritsuko chided, though she sounded more amused than anything else.

Maya didn't respond right away, silently looking over Ritsuko's shoulder as the older woman called up the DNA analysis of the Sixth Angel.

"It's my break," Maya answered after taking a quick look at the computer screen. "And for some reason this is the only place I can spend fifteen minutes drinking my coffee without someone interrupting me with questions about what part of the defense grid we should repair first."

"Maya, you are those people's boss, you know," Ritsuko reminded her. "Just order them to leave you alone."

"Command's never come easily to me," Maya said.

Ritsuko smirked. "Oh, I don't know. Misato told me you did beautifully during the last battle. What was it you said to the admiral? That you'd see to it he was busted all the way down to ensign if he didn't relinquish command to you?"

Maya chuckled nervously. "That was a…fluke, sempai," she said. "I don't understand why the Commander doesn't replace me. It's not like my performance has been so stellar."

Ritsuko frowned slightly. She had asked the man himself that same question, out of concern for her former protégé, not to mention concern for the wellbeing of human kind. The response had been…typical Gendo.

_"Katsuragi was the perfect choice for the Operations Director. Her vendetta against the Angels made the likelihood that she would go poking her nose into places it didn't belong minimal, and her tactical brilliance assured that the project was in good hands. Until I find someone else as complementary to the scenario, Ibuki is an acceptable stopgap."_

"Unfortunately, only Commander Ikari understands what goes on the in mind of Commander Ikari," Ritsuko dodged.

Whatever response Maya was about to make was cut off when the door to the lab slid open and a certain unshaven Special Inspector entered.

Kaji smiled as walked in and spotted the new Ops Director. True, he had come with the intention of saying hello to Rits, catching up on old times, and perhaps grilling her for details on Misato's strange transformation, but Ryoji Kaji was not a man who passed on unexpected opportunities.

"My, my, I must say, I'm always struck by the number of beautiful women who work here at NERV Central," he commented, grinning at Maya. "Perhaps Commander Ikari isn't the cold fish he tries to make everyone think he is."

"Arigato, Kaji-san," Maya said, her tone decidedly cool.

"You know, you're not as subtle as I remember, Kaji," Ritsuko commented with a small smile.

"I thought you were going to be returning to the Third Branch now that the transferal of Unit Two's been completed," Maya put in, wondering why her sempai was friends with this man.

"I received orders this morning that I've been transferred here," Kaji said cheerfully. "I'm very much looking forward to it."

"Sugoi," Maya grumbled.

Ritsuko held back a chuckle. She wondered how long it would take before her young, former protégé finally cracked under her old friend's charm. _Maybe I could start a betting pool,_ she mused. _No, if Maya found out she'd—_

The scientist was interrupted in mid thought by the sudden sound of klaxons blaring and the lights in the room switching to an urgent red.

"Another Angel?" Maya gasped. "Already?"

Meanwhile, in the command center, things were a bit more composed. "We've just received this message from the battle cruiser _Haruna_: 'Have detected huge submerged object off the Ki'i Peninsula. Sending data.'"

"Got it," Makoto said, his fingers already dancing over his keyboard. "The data has been analyzed. The wavelength pattern confirms it: it's an Angel."

The Vice Commander did an admirable job hiding fact that he was inwardly cursing fate for sending another Angel when Gendo was out of town. None of it showed on his face. "All personnel, go to first stage alert!" he ordered.

* * *

Inside the mobile command van, Maya tried to draw confidence from her performance in the previous Angel engagement. The fact that no other military organizations were involved this time didn't hurt matters, nor did Misao's presence in the van with her. She would have preferred if the Angel hadn't decided to appear while Unit Zero was in the middle of having its armor replaced with stronger plates, but the presence of Asuka and Unit Two—NERV's most heavily trained pilot and most advanced EVA, respectively, also served to put her mind at ease.

All in all, she was feeling better about this particular sortie than she had about any of the previous ones, and it showed in her for once confident demeanor.

"All right, Shinji, Asuka, our defense systems were badly damaged during the battle against the Fifth Angel, and our capability for actual combat in the city is virtually nonexistent right now as a result," Maya informed the pilots via the van's audio/video communications system. "So we're going to be engaging the target outside the city, right off the coast as it makes landfall. Units One and Two will take turns attacking until we can get a better understanding of this Angel's capabilities."

"Roger," Shinji and Asuka replied crisply, and for a moment Maya dared to believe her little speech had inspired the Children, filled them with determination and purpose to defend all mankind.

"This sucks," Asuka complained. "My first fight in Japan and she won't let me handle it solo. Why did we have to bring the baka?"

Unsurprisingly, Shinji was contacting Asuka over an EVA to EVA line a moment later, a small window labeled "From EVA-01" that showed Shinji popping up in her entry plug.

"You've been training to pilot EVA for ten years now and you still don't know SOP?" he asked dryly, grinning.

"I've forgotten more about EVA than you'll ever know, Third Child!" Asuka snapped. "Just don't get in my way!"

The communications window inside Unit Two snapped closed almost at once. With their view of the inside of Unit One's entry plug, Maya and Misao could see Shinji rolling his eyes.

"They're in position," one of the technicians in the van reported.

"Release the lock bolts," Maya ordered, deciding to ignore the little spat for now.

The massive EVA carrier planes dropped their cargo and gravity abruptly reclaimed Units One and Two. The red and purple behemoths fell several thousand feet, landing hard on their feet on the sandy coast, neither of them any worse for the wear from the drop. A cache of weapons for the two EVA's fell next to them, also having been airdropped, and a pair of large trucks carrying power sockets for the giant biomechanical weapons pulled up next to them and got the EVA's back on external power.

"Two against one's not a fair fight," Asuka complained, even as she was testing the balance of a progressive spear. "Not fair."

Back in the command van, Maya sighed and pushed the button to open up a private line between her and Unit Two. "Asuka, this isn't a game," she reminded the Second Child. "I want the odds as unfairly in our favor as possible."

"I guess," Asuka conceded reluctantly.

Seconds later, the Angel burst out of the water. It was a huge gray and black thing, vaguely reminiscent of the Third Angel, only much, much larger. Its "face" was an odd yin-yang pattern with the red core just above the thing's pelvis.

_Seems pretty vanilla so far as Angels go,_ Maya thought hopefully. _With any luck, this'll be over in minutes._

"I'll handle this Angel, Shinji!" Asuka proclaimed, throwing Unit Two into motion. "Cover my back!"

"Cover you?" Shinji demanded.

"Yeah! Ladies first!" Asuka called.

Shinji paused for a moment, then sighed. "This cannot possibly end well," he muttered to himself, even as he pulled the trigger on the pallet rifle Unit One was holding, sending a spray of very high caliber rounds at the Angel.

"Charge!" Asuka yelled.

Unit Two leapt onto the roof of a half submerged building, then onto another one, using the ruins as stepping stones to get closer to the Angel and invoking unpleasant memories of the "hopscotch" game during the last battle in Shinji's mind.

With a loud yell, Asuka brought the spear down, cleanly bisecting the Angel from head to crotch. The two halves sagged to the side, rather pathetically.

"Damn," Shinji said, impressed with the crazy girl despite himself.

Asuka grinned. "Well, what did you think of that, Third Child?" she asked. "A fight should be clean and elegant, without waste."

Suddenly, the Angel's corpse began to shudder, the strange face pulling back into the body...

Two smaller Angels burst out of the remains of the original one, both of them looking almost exactly like miniature versions of their "parent." One of them was orange and black, while the other one was green and black.

_That's the problem with being a pessimist,_ Shinji thought, the unmistakable sound of everything going straight to hell ringing in his ears. _Even when you're right, you're not happy._

* * *

The images projected onto the wall were ones of failure, absolute, miserable, humiliating failure.

"Today, at 10:58 a.m., Unit One was attacked by one of the targets, Alpha, which had separated from the other target, two kilometers off Saruga Bay," Sakura said. "Twenty seconds later, Unit Two was stopped by target Beta's attack."

He pressed a button on the projector, slowing slides of Units One and Two. Unit Two had been buried head first in a rice patty, its legs sticking out in a way that would have been comical under other circumstances. Unit One was laying in the ocean, which had been stained red by the EVA's blood.

Shinji had fought with significantly more tenacity and determination than anyone would have ever expected from him a few months ago. Unfortunately, against this enemy, all that had translated to was a bigger repair bill for NERV to pay.

"It was, to put it simply, an unsuccessful engagement," Sakura said, deciding to leave Dr. Akagi's comments on the matter unsaid at this briefing.

"This is all your fault!" Asuka exploded, pointing an accusing finger at Shinji. "You totally screwed up my debut battle!"

Shinji glared coldly at Asuka, looking disturbingly like his father for a moment before he said, "You were the one who ignored procedure."

"You look like a beached whale!" Asuka snapped.

"Your EVA isn't exactly in a dignified position, either," Shinji growled.

"At 11:06 a.m., NERV transferred control of the engagement to UN Secondary Force," Sakura continued.

"We've been completely humiliated," the Vice Commander said.

"At 11:10 a.m., the UN forces made an attack with an N2 mine," Sakura said, showing slides of the explosion, as well as what parts of the coast had been obliterated.

"We'll have to redraw the map again!" Fuyutski exclaimed, disgusted.

"They succeeded in burning off 28 of the target's structural substance," Sakura said, showing an image of the charred and cracked pair of Angels.

"It kinda looks dead," Asuka said.

"This is only temporary. The second attack is merely a matter of time," Fuyutski said.

"Well, at least we've got time to regroup and plan our next move, and you can't ask for much more than that," Kaji pointed out.

The younger man's cheerfulness did nothing to improve the Vice Commander's mood. He got to his feet and gave the pilot's a very stern look. "All right, you two, just what do you think your job is?"

"Piloting EVA," Asuka said.

"Wrong!" Fuyutski snapped. "It's to defeat the Angels! NERV does not exist to make grotesque public spectacles! Therefore, the two of you will learn to work together!"

"Fine," Shinji sighed.

"Why should we?!" Asuka demanded at the same time.

The Vice Commander sighed tiredly. "Enough," he said.

He pressed a button on his seat, and descended into the floor and to another area of the base via one of the many personal lifts scattered throughout the complex.

"Why does everyone get so angry here?" Asuka asked.

"Adults have a thing about credibility," Kaji said, still looking vaguely amused by the whole thing.

"Hey, where are Misao and Maya?" Shinji asked.

"Clearing things up."

* * *

"Wh-what is all this?" Maya asked, eyeing the mountain of papers that completely covered her desk with considerable trepidation.

"These are the protests and damage reports from all of the concerned agencies, a bill from the UN, and I think there's a complaint from PR in here somewhere," Misao explained, not without sympathy. "It's a safe bet that pretty much all of them say 'If you're going to fight, please don't do it here.'"

"Why is all on _my_ desk?" Maya asked, fearing she already knew the answer.

"Basically, the Commander and Vice Commander like to pass the buck for whatever goes wrong to the Ops Director. Regulations say that the Ops Director can't pass it any lower on the chain of command," Misao answered. "Which means that all the paperwork is your responsibility."

"Oh," Maya said, pulling out her chair and collapsing into it.

"If you want my advice, you should probably just put doing all this off until the Angel's dead," Misao said. "Protecting mankind takes priority over pushing paper."

"Having all this waiting for me after the battle won't exactly inspire me to avert Armageddon," Maya groaned with a ghost of a smile.

Misao grinned slightly. "Then do it so that you can avoid getting chewed out by the Vice Commander in the last few moments before the end," she said.

"He's that angry?"

Misao nodded. "Might've already fired or demoted you if not for the fact all this," she gestured at the papers, "would become his problem if he did."

"Demotion, mmm," Maya said with a dreamy smile, visions of her old job clearly dancing through her head.

Misao chuckled. "Not going to happen anytime soon, I'm afraid, so you'd better get to work on defeating the Angel."

Maya rubbed her eyes tiredly. The rush of adrenaline and hope for a quick, easy battle earlier, followed by the terrible crash had really left her feeling dragged out. "Any ideas?" she asked.

"Not yet," Misao admitted.

"Did someone ask for an idea on how to defeat the Angel?"

Both Maya and Misao turned to see Ritsuko striding into the office, holding a floppy disk. Maya's eyes lit up at once. "You're wonderful, sempai!" she exclaiming, reaching out to take the disk.

Ritsuko pulled it out of Maya's reach. "Arigato, Maya, but this isn't _my_ idea," she said. "It's from Kaji."

"…I see," Maya said, now eyeing the disk as though she expected it to turn into a viper any second now.

Ritsuko tossed it atop the mountain of papers on Maya's desk. "Well, if you'll excuse me, I have to oversee the repairs to Unit One," she said, turning to walk out. She stopped long enough to add, "Good luck, Maya."

Misao, standing on tip toes and craning her neck to see, looked at the disk. Kaji had written, "To the beautiful Operations Director of NERV" on it, along with a heart.

"Maya," Misao said gently, "Kaji's a pig, but he's not an idiot. Take it. Check it out. Use it if it's a good plan."

"Yeah, I guess I should," Maya said, picking up the disk.

She looked so pitiful at the moment that Misao almost volunteered to help her with all the paperwork. The only thing that stopped her was reminding herself that not having to do it was the one tangible, inarguably positive result of her transformation. Not being able to drink, not being able to drive, not having her gun or authority at NERV anymore…freedom from the damn paperwork was all she'd received in exchange so far, or so it seemed at times.

So instead she went over to Maya and hugged the woman. "It'll be okay," she said softly. "You'll get through this. I'll help with killing the Angels in any way I can, promise."

"Thank you," Maya whispered, clutching onto Misao like a drowning woman clutching to a rope.

* * *

"What a day," Shinji muttered to himself as he walked back home.

He noted a DHL truck pulling away from the apartment building with mild interest. To the best of his knowledge, no one but himself and Misao lived in their apartment building. The rest of it was empty and abandoned, not unlike much of Tokyo-3. Living in what was essentially a giant fortress that was often besieged by otherworldly monsters understandably didn't appeal to most people.

But perhaps the truck meant somebody was moving into one of the other apartments? He couldn't understand why anyone would, given the events of that day.

Still, he made a mental note to investigate tomorrow if he had time. He might've gone looking for the potential new neighbors right then, but at the moment all he wanted to do was eat, listen to his music for a while, and then sleep.

"Tadaima," he said as he walked into the apartment, not expecting anyone to answer him.

He wasn't disappointed. He was, however, surprised to see a number of DHL boxes piled in the hallway.

_That truck was bringing stuff here? But what could Misao have had shipped here?_ He wondered. _Ah, to hell with it. Figure it out tomorrow._

He walked over to his room and slid the screen door open.

Then promptly did a double take when he saw that all his stuff was missing, replaced by even more of the DHL boxes. "What is this?!" he demanded of no in particular.

"Don't be so rude! These are my personal belongings!"

Shinji jumped a foot at the unexpected voice, quickly spinning once he reached the ground to face Asuka who was dressed in blue shorts and a lighter blue tank top. She had a towel draped around her neck and held a can of juice in one hand.

All in all, she looked disturbingly like someone who was just lounging around her own home.

"You! What the blazes are you _doing_ here?" Shinji demanded.

"What are you _still_ doing here, Third Child?" Asuka countered.

"Still doing here?" Shinji echoed, still trying to wrap his mind around what was going on.

"Mm, you've been dumped for the new model," Asuka said smugly. "Misato will be living with me from now on. That's a much more logical choice in light of my superior abilities…although I'd much rather be living with Kaji!" she added with a dreamy look on her face.

Shinji didn't say anything at first, surprised at just how much getting kicked out of Misao's apartment hurt. He'd thought they were friends, not just co-workers.

Then he frowned as a thought occurred to him. "Um, you're the Second Child. I'm the Third. Wouldn't that make _me_ the new model?"

Asuka waved this off, leaning against the doorframe to the bedroom she'd clearly staked claim to. "Mere semantics, Third Child," she said. "Semantics which do nothing to negate the fact that I am by far the superior pilot."

"…where did all my stuff go?" Shinji asked, ignoring Asuka's bragging.

She, in turn, ignored him. "Say, why are Japanese homes so small anyway?" she asked. "I could barely get half my stuff in here!"

Shinji had by then spotted the cardboard box where his stuff had been placed, laying out in the hall. With a cry of dismay, he rushed over to it, hoping that Asuka at least hadn't broken any of his meager possessions.

"And Japanese sure don't have any sense of privacy. How can you live in a room without locks?" Asuka asked, sliding the screen open and closed several times. "It's weird!"

"The Japanese way is to consider the needs of others before one's own."

Both Shinji and Asuka turned in surprise to see Misao standing behind Asuka, carrying a small boom box on her shoulder.

"Misato," Asuka said.

"Misao," Shinji said at the exact same time.

"You two are going to get along real well," Misao said.

"Huh?" Asuka said.

Shinji didn't say anything. He didn't like the potential implications of Misao's statement, or the smile she was wearing at the moment.

"This is part of your new training," Misao said.

"Say what?!" Shinji and Asuka demanded at once.

"Come and have a seat at the table and I'll explain it to you," Misao said.

They went into the living room and sat down at the table across from Misao as she explained the situation and the plan over a number of printouts concerning the Seventh Angel.

"In other words, an attack on both halves by two EVA's with perfectly synchronized timing," Misao finished. "Coordination between the two of you will be vital to the success of the mission. To that end, the two of you will live together from now on."

Asuka let out a cry of dismay.

Shinji just closed his eyes and grimaced. _Son of a…!_

"No way!" Asuka exclaimed. "A boy and a girl should never sleep under one roof after the age of seven!"

"The Angel is currently regenerating itself," Misao said. "It will begin its assault in six days. You need to be ready by then."

"But it's impossible," Asuka protested in a groan.

"We have a way of making it possible," Misao said, holding up an audio tape. "We'll choreograph the master attack pattern to this music. This should allow you to work in synch and totally destroy the Angel. We attack in six days."

Shinji sighed. "Let's get started."

Asuka just "hmphed" and turned away from him.

* * *

"I'm getting really worried about Shinji and Misao," Toji commented as he and Kensuke rode the elevator up to Shinji's floor in the apartment building.

"They've been gone for three days," Kensuke agreed.

The elevator reached its destination and the doors slid open. Toji and Kensuke walked out, and to their surprise saw Hikari Horaki emerging from another elevator. "Hey, it's the class rep," Toji said.

"Two of the three stooges," Hikari said.

"So why are you here?" Toji asked.

"To see how Soryu-san is doing," Hikari replied. "You?"

"To look in on Shinji and Misao," Kensuke answered.

Much to their confusion, the three of them all stopped at the same door. "Why did you stop here?" they all asked in unison.

None of them tried to answer. Instead, they all slowly reached out and pressed the doorbell.

"Coming!" a pair of voices, one male and one female, crackled over the intercom.

The door opened a moment later to reveal a miserable looking Shinji and Asuka, both of them dressed in matching outfits that looked suspiciously like 80's workout clothing.

Toji and Kensuke blinked dumbly, while Hikari's face began to twitch.

"Wh-what?" Kensuke forced out.

"It's all NERV's fault!" Shinji and Asuka exclaimed in unison. "We have to eat breathe, and sleep together!"

"Whoa," Kensuke breathed, sounding awed. "Go Shinji!"

Synchronized far more perfectly than Shinji and Asuka had managed to become thus far, Hikari and Asuka reached out and smacked Kensuke upside the head for _that_ comment. Because of the training, Shinji nearly hit him as well but managed to hold back. While his friend had arguably deserved a smack, Shinji wasn't about to give it to him.

"You're living in sin!" Hikari exclaimed, turning her attention back to the pilots. "That's awful!"

"No! It's not like that!" Shinji and Asuka protested.

"Then what is it like?" Hikari asked, burying her face in hands, clearly mortified.

"Hi, everybody!"

Everyone turned to see Misao and Rei standing nearby, the former smiling cheerfully and the latter with her usual blank expression.

"Um, would you like to explain this to us?" Toji asked Misao, deciding he didn't trust the wonder twins at the moment.

* * *

A few minutes later, Toji, Kensuke, and Hikari were enjoying a laugh as Shinji and Asuka bounced around crazily on a pair of dance mats.

"You should've told us about that part earlier, Shinji," Toji said.

"So how is their training coming along, Misao?" Hikari asked.

"Not very well, I'm afraid," Misao said, taking a sip from her juice can. "And I promised Captain Ibuki I'd have them ready by the time the Angel recovered, too."

"If you don't mind my asking, why isn't your guardian here overseeing this training?" Hikari asked.

Misao sighed. "Ritsuko's been stuck at NERV even more than usual lately. Unit One took a lot of damage in the battle three days ago, and it's her job to get it battle ready ASAP."

"Shiest!" Asuka exclaimed, flinging her headphones across the room as the dance machine buzzed loudly, indicating an error. Getting to her feet, she exclaimed. "Well so much for synchronization! I could never synchronize to the level this animated turnip lives at! If you ask me, the whole idea's impossible!"

"Then you're giving up?" Misao asked.

Asuka placed her hands on her hips and gave Misao a smug look. "But you don't have anyone else, do you?"

Misao's smile suddenly became sly. "Rei?"

"Yes, Misao?"

"Why don't you give it a try?"

Rei nodded and got up, grabbing Asuka's discarded headphones. Shinji reset the machine, and the two got in position to perform the synch training.

The music began, and Asuka watched in horror as Shinji and Rei performed the dance flawlessly.

Misao grinned. "Well, I guess I should speak to Captain Ibuki about altering the operation to pair Shinji and Rei."

Asuka gasped softly. She knew all too well that Misao was the power behind the Ops Director's chair in NERV. She wouldn't even be mentioning Maya if not for the presence three people who weren't NERV personnel.

"What?! No…no," Asuka said. "No! I can't stand this! I can't take it anymore!"

The Second Child stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door behind her. Shinji immediately stopped dancing on the mat, taking off his headphones.

"Wait! Asuka!" Hikari called.

"Oh boy," Shinji groaned, getting up and following her out.

The people left in the room were silent for several seconds. Finally, Kensuke leaned over to Toji and whispered, "You know, if I lived with two hot girls, I'd be a lot less morose than Shinji is."

Toji just nodded sagely in agreement.

* * *

Shinji found Asuka in a convience store that was right across the street from the apartment building. The redhead was currently perusing the soft drinks, or at least pretending to. To Shinji, it looked like she was trying to see if she could make the cans explode with just the force of her glare.

Had Shinji been a betting man, he would've placed a few yen on her being able to do so.

"Asuka—"

"Don't say anything," she cut him off.

Shinji decided to ignore her. "I can't believe that you fell for that."

This was not what Asuka had expected him to say at all, and she turned to look up at Shinji in surprise. "What?"

"Misao's not going to replace you with Rei," Shinji said. "Unit Zero is still weeks away from being operational. Rei's only theoretically capable of piloting Unit Two, and after Unit Zero went ballistic on her months back, they're not going to try mixing and matching pilots and EVA's with only three days before the Angel's on the move again."

"But—"

"If we can't cooperate to make this work, _I'm_ the one who's going to get replaced, not you," Shinji continued. "After all, NERV knows that Unit One will work for Misao. She only said she'd have Rei replace you to try and get you to _slow down_ a little so I have a chance of being able to synch with you. So could we please go back now and keep trying?"

Asuka was silent for a moment as she realized several facts.

Fact the first: Shinji was right about Misao's threat to replace her being an empty one designed to scare her. She should have seen it. Doubtless she would have seen it if she wasn't about to burst with frustration and irritation at the situation she'd been stuck in for the last three days.

Fact the second: Shinji Ikari was—slightly—sharper than she'd given him credit for and even seemed to have something resembling a functioning spine.

Fact the third: the Third Child, in contrast to her assumptions, had absolutely no desire to stop piloting EVA. Asuka could certainly respect that. Hell, it might be the only thing she could respect about him.

Asuka briefly imagined what it would be like to have her own backup pilot, someone who was constantly nipping at her heels, just waiting for her to screw up so she could take her precious Unit Two away from her.

The Second Child had to suppress a shudder at _that_ mental image and admitted to feeling a stab of sympathy for the Third.

"So you want to go back, Third Child?" Asuka said, suddenly regaining her usual cocky attitude.

"Hai," Shinji answered evenly, "and I'd appreciate it if you tried to synch to me a little bit, too."

"All right, then, let's go back. I'll see what I can do about synching down to the level of an animated turnip," Asuka said magnanimously.

"Arigato," Shinji said, and, to Asuka's surprise, there didn't seem to be any sarcasm in his voice.

* * *

"So, how has preparing the human factor of the plan been going?" Ritsuko asked.

She and Misao had met again at the Pulse, this time in the early afternoon. D-Day was the day after tomorrow.

"Good," Misao answered pensively, "better than I'd expected when we started this, actually. Shinji and Asuka were ninety-something percent in synch with each other according to that machine when I left. They might get a perfect score by the time I get back."

"And yet you don't sound very pleased," Ritsuko commented, taking a sip of her coffee. "Is it because you were hoping that Shinji wouldn't be able to do it and give you an excuse to step in?"

That was a part of it, Misao admitted to herself, gazing into her mug of green tea. She'd gotten her hopes up after the first three days of training had borne only marginal improvements in the pilots' ability to synch with one another. Indeed, if not for the fact that Shinji was clearly trying as hard as he possibly could to synch to Asuka, while she wasn't giving any effort to synching to him, Misao wouldn't have bothered threatening to replace Asuka with Rei. She would've just taken Shinji's place for the operation.

All in all, though, the fact that she was missing out on yet _another_ battle was only a tiny part of the reason for her gray mood.

"Not really. I mean, I'd like to get off the sidelines, but so long as Shinji's the better pilot…" she shrugged, as if to say that was just the way it was.

"So why are you so down in the dumps, then?" Ritsuko asked.

"It's hard to explain," Misao said. "During the third day of training Asuka threw a fit and stormed out. Shinji went after her. When they came back, she was all business."

Ritsuko's eyebrows rose. "You're in a mood because the kids we're relying upon the save the human race are actually behaving like adults?"

She supposed it did sound a little strange when you put it like that, but Ritsuko simply couldn't understand. She didn't know the kids like Misao did, and she hadn't been there at the time.

_Some guardian she is,_ Misao thought, and had to fight a smirk.

There was just something so damn creepy about the way Shinji's weary professionalism had infected Asuka like a cold germ. It made the two seem far older than their years, which was a depressing sight. She didn't like to think about how the pilots' childhoods were being destroyed in the name of this war.

Misao had decided yesterday that she was actually looking forward to the return of the bratty Asuka she was familiar with, which would hopefully be forthcoming after the Seventh Angel was destroyed.

But how to convey all this to her friend? Misao soon realized that she couldn't, and she would only sound crazy if she tried.

"I guess I'm just expecting Asuka to be twice as bad after holding it all back for so long," Misao said, smiling weakly.

"Ah," Ritsuko said, giving her a look that said she didn't quite believe her. "By the way, are you sure it's a good idea to be just leaving the Children alone at your apartment? How do you know they won't be doing anything…inappropriate?"

"Pen-Pen is chaperoning them," Misao answered without missing a beat.

For a split second, Ritsuko actually believed this was her method of preventing the pilots from doing anything they shouldn't and choked on her coffee. "Not…" she coughed, "not funny."

"It is from where I'm sitting," she said, grinning.

"Be serious," Ritsuko huffed.

"Fine, spoil sport," Misao said. "Actually, no one is chaperoning them, but I seriously doubt they're doing anything naughty right now. They don't even like each other."

Misao tried to ignore the mingled relief and satisfaction she felt every time she contemplated the animosity her two wards felt for one another. That was just the damned hormones talking, she told herself for the umpteenth time.

"Still, they are teenagers," Ritsuko said. "You know how quickly they can think they're falling in love."

"I guess, but they are going to be living together for the foreseeable future. I can't watch them every minute of every day, so I just have to trust them," Misao said. "Besides, I don't think even a fourteen-year-old can make the jump from suppressed loathing to believing they're in love with each other in the span of a few hours."

"Well, you would know," Ritsuko said dryly.

Misao scowled. "Bitch."

Ritsuko smirked. "And proud of it."

Misao sighed. "So, how is Maya doing? I haven't gotten to see much of her this week."

"She's…surviving," Ritsuko said. "Poor girl's using every spare minute she gets to work on that mountain of paperwork. Still, I actually think she's finally starting to get the hang of her new job. She seems more at ease giving orders than before."

Misao smiled proudly. "I knew Maya had it in her ever since she stood up to that admiral," she said. "Never underestimate the ability of the human animal to adapt to its circumstances."

"Thank you, Darwin," Ritsuko said dryly. "Still, adapting or not, I expect that if the Commander ever gets around to finding someone else to be Ops Director and gives Maya her old job back, she'll kiss him."

Misao suddenly had a vision of the young brunette kissing Gendo Ikari full on the mouth and nearly sent hot tea through her nose. Honestly, if she didn't share an apartment with living proof of the fact that Gendo had indeed gotten laid at least once, she wouldn't believe any woman would ever want to touch the imposing ice block.

"Where is Maya, anyway?" Misao asked.

"Working on last minute preparations for tomorrow's battle," Ritsuko said. "She'll probably be at it for most of the night."

Misao felt a stab of guilt. "Do me a favor, Rits," she said. "Assuming we're still alive after the battle, tell Maya to take a day off, paperwork or no."

Ritsuko arched an eyebrow. "Maya's not my subordinate anymore."

"No, but she respects you a lot, probably more than anyone else here," Misao replied.

Ritsuko looked slightly surprised by the matter-of-fact way that her friend said this, but she shrugged it off. "I'll advise her that she needs to rest," she said.

Misao nodded. "Well, I should probably be getting back to the apartment now," she said. "Shinji and Asuka aren't going to do the horizontal mambo, but they just might murder each other."

"Horizontal mambo?" Ritsuko said, slightly incredulous at Misao's use of the euphemism.

But Misao was already on her way out.

* * *

"Well, this is the last night we'll be doing this," Misao said as she unrolled her futon in the apartment's living room.

"Thank Gott," Asuka grumbled.

Shinji agreed with the German's sentiments, though he didn't say anything. Partly because he had learned to tread lightly around her and partly because he was loathe to openly agree with the crazy redhead about anything.

Misao smiled. "I think we'll all be glad to see our own rooms tomorrow night."

Shinji nodded absently, taking out his SDAT but failing to put the ear buds in and start it up before Asuka lodged her nightly complaint about the Japanese custom of sleeping on the floor.

He rolled his eyes as he lay down and started the music, doing his damnedest to not think about what would happen if he screwed up tomorrow.

_Toji and Kensuke would probably give a million yen to be me right now,_ he thought with a small smirk. _Bakas._

* * *

Several hours later, Shinji was awoken by the sound of the toilet flushing. His still sleepy mind took a few seconds to identify the sound, but once he realized what it was he closed his eyes, intent on returning to his slumber. He was nearly asleep again when someone lay down right next to him. He opened his eyes…

And found himself staring right at Asuka's cleavage, which was gloriously exposed from the way the loose T-shirt she'd worn to bed had somehow gotten pulled down.

Maybe it was the constant teasing from Misao he'd been dealing with as a result of them living and working together for months now. Maybe it was because he was developing a spine. Or maybe it was just because he still half asleep.

Whatever the reason, Shinji didn't freak out.

_Well, that's interesting,_ he thought in a strangely detached manner.

He then realized that she'd kill him if she ever found out about this, or, god forbid, woke up next to him. She'd blame it on him, despite the fact that she was in his futon.

Yet he still didn't freak out. Instead, he began comparing what he had to work with against the problem, the way Misao had spoken of doing right after the battle against the Sixth Angel.

At least, that's what he tried to do until he heard Asuka murmuring in her sleep. He looked up to her face and strained to hear what she was saying.

"Mama…" the girl said, a tear running down her cheek.

Shinji blinked, taken aback. Since meeting her, Shinji's opinion of Asuka could pretty well be summed up by "psycho bitch." But apparently there was more to the Second Child than he had originally realized.

She had her own secret pains to deal with.

Sighing as his opinion of the Second Child shifted, doing so nearly despite him, Shinji got up and carefully made his way to the futon that Asuka had vacated. The Third Child lay down and shut his eyes.

He was asleep in seconds, and thus failed to notice what happened next.

* * *

Shinji checked his wristwatch again for what was, he knew, the tenth time in half as many minutes. They were due at headquarters in an hour and a half, and he had already showered, dressed, and made breakfast. Asuka and Misao, however, weren't even close to ready.

His two roommates were still asleep, in fact, but that wasn't the problem. No, the problem was what would likely happen when they woke up and realized the position they were in.

Asuka had apparently rolled over in her sleep last night and had latched onto Misao. The two were softly clutching onto one another, looking for all the world like a happy couple embracing one another as they slept.

_She'll go ballistic when she wakes up,_ Shinji thought glumly as he looked at Asuka, marveling at how peaceful she looked while asleep. _And because I'm a guy, she'll go ballistic on _me.

He had really hoped that they'd wake up by themselves, and he could be out of striking range when that happened. However, that didn't look like it was going to happen, so he had to wake them or the world was doomed.

Wondering what the world had ever done for him to merit such service, Shinji went over to the two ladies and gently shook them.

"Five more minutes," Misao mumbled.

Asuka opened her eyes, realized she and Misao were clutching onto one another, and shrieked. "What the hell?!" she demanded.

The Second Child tried frantically to escape her fellow pilot's embrace, but found they were too tangled up in the blankets for her to do so quickly.

Misao grinned mischievously. "Wow, Asuka, I'm really flattered, but I'm afraid I don't swing that way," she said. "Besides, you're a bit too young for me."

Neither young woman noticed Shinji's face twitch for just the briefest fraction of a second at that.

"Ack! Pervert!" Asuka exclaimed, finally managed to extract herself. She turned her glare on Shinji. "And you! I bet you really enjoyed seeing us like that, didn't you, you deviant?!"

Shinji would later plead temporary insanity for what he did next, since he literally had no idea he was going to do it until it was done. The Third Child smirked, a crazed light in his eyes, and said, "Very much so. And I'm sure the guys at school will love the pictures I took of you two."

"WHAT?!" Asuka shrieked, jumping to her feet. "Hentai! You'd better hand over any pictures you took right now!"

"I was just kidding!" Shinji cried as she began to chase him around the apartment. "I don't even own a camera! Gomen nasai! Gomen nasai!"

Misao laughed. " I do believe that I've been a bad influence on you, Shinji-kun," she said. "Asuka, stop. Shinji would never do such a thing."

She thought back to when she'd discovered that Shinji had shut down Toji and Kensuke's little photo business. If he couldn't tolerate the idea of them selling pictures of just her, Shinji obviously wasn't about to start handing out pictures of both her and Asuka.

Misao still found it cute how protective he'd been of her. Though apparently that protectiveness didn't extend to Asuka; she had seen several guys at school with pictures of the Second Child.

That secretly pleased Misao, how Shinji had only stepped in for her, though she didn't even fully admit as much to herself, let alone anyone else.

Misao forced herself back to reality just as Asuka finally managed to corner Shinji. "Asuka, stop!" Misao ordered again, more forcefully this time. "Shinji's telling the truth. Besides, if you incapacitate him, all of humanity will die today," she added, when she saw Asuka wasn't swayed by her vouching for the Third Child.

"Fine!" Asuka snapped at last. "But so help me, Third Child, if it turns out you did take pictures and they start circulating around the school, I will crush you."

Shinji nodded, then breathed a sigh of relief as Asuka stomped off toward the bathroom for a quick shower. There really weren't any pictures.

Though he might have to mention to Toji and Kensuke about how those two had ended up in each other's arms, if only so as to watch the two teenage boys have a fit...

* * *

Finally, the moment was nearly upon them. Either they'd defeat the Seventh Angel and stave off the destruction of the human race for a bit longer, or they'd slip up somehow and the end of the world would probably begin.

_I feel nauseous,_ Shinji thought as he sat inside the entry plug. He took a deep 'breath' of LCL. _Just remember why you're doing this._

He was surprised at how much that calmed his roiling stomach. Before he could reflect on it further, however, a communications window labeled "From EVA-02" popped up inside the plug.

"Ready, Shinji?" Asuka asked, smirking cheerfully. "Just stick to the routine."

God, but he envied Asuka's arrogance. It had annoyed the hell out of him this week, but at the moment he would have gladly given anything to be as certain of victory as she was.

"Right, the routine," Shinji agreed. "This'll all be over in sixty-two seconds."

A window labeled "From Command" appeared in both entry plugs, but it wasn't Maya who addressed them, it was Misao.

"I'd wish you two luck, but I don't think you need it," Misao said, smiling. "You two have the routine so down pat, I almost feel sorry for the Angel."

Shinji was surprised at how much the simple words of encouragement served to decrease the tension building up inside of him. He gave Misao a small smile and was about to thank her when another voice broke in.

"The target has entered our range!" Aoba reported.

"Launch the EVA's!" Maya ordered. "Commence the attack!"

The music started, blasting through the command bridge in NERV as well as inside the Children's entry plugs. What followed for the next minute and two seconds would later be described as poetry in motion…giant robot style.

For that one minute, Shinji and Asuka fought together in perfect synch, a week's worth of work culminating in a single perfect performance that ended with two feet each the size of a tanker truck slamming into the Seventh Angel's twin cores.

"We've done it," Maya said triumphantly as an explosion that left a massive crater in the ground formed.

The flames and smoke from the blast cleared a few seconds later, and everyone on the bridge groaned at the sight of Units One and Two, sprawled out in a heap together in the huge crater.

"Both EVA's are okay," reported Sakura.

* * *

Shinji emerged from the entry plug feeling considerably dazed but fairly triumphant. After all, the mere fact that he was still alive was conclusive proof that the Seventh Angel was dead, so he wasn't too concerned about things having not gone quite according to plan.

A sudden ringing soon got his attention, and he turned to see a small section of Unit One's armor open up to reveal a phone. He frowned, wondering why such a thing had been installed, but he picked it up anyway.

And soon wished he hadn't.

"Shinji you baka!" Asuka shouted. "You totally ruined the landing! We look ridiculous with your EVA on top mine like this!"

"It's not my fault you missed the last step," Shinji sputtered in protest.

"_I_ missed the last step?!" Asuka snapped. "Ha! That's a good one! Next you'll tell me again that you didn't take pictures of me and Misao snuggled up together!"

"I did no such thing!" Shinji replied hotly.

* * *

Meanwhile, back at headquarters, everyone, from the Vice Commander to the lowliest bridge tech had turned to regard the Fourth Child with a shocked stare.

Misao could tell from the sensation of heat in her face that she was blushing furiously.

"It's not like that!" she exclaimed.

Ritsuko was the first to regain her composure. She knew Misato well enough to know that if it actually was like "that," her friend wouldn't be so embarrassed. It was paradoxical, but so much of human nature was.

"So what is it like?" Ritsuko asked, smirking.

Misao was too mortified to detect the scientist's teasing tone. "It's part of the training!" she tried to explain. "We've been sleeping together and—"

Maya let out a horrified squeak.

"Not like _that!_" Misao exclaimed, aware of the fact that she was digging herself in deeper but somehow unable to stop. "It's to promote teamwork!"

Commander Fuyutski slowly closed his eyes, tuning out Misao's desperate attempts to set the record straight. _Thank god the censorship is holding so well,_ he thought. _If the press ever find out who the Children are and interview them, they'll embarrass the hell out of this organization._

* * *

Author's Notes: And so we've made it past the Asuka introduction episodes. I didn't deviate from the episode too much here, but I hope you like the changes I did make. As you've probably noticed by now, Shinji and Misao are unconsciously rubbing off on each other a little.

HiroshimaNagasaki, on the name thing, the different names just makes it easier to avoid ambiguity here and there. Plus it's done in tribute to "Misato's Second Childhood" which this is a rewrite of. As for Shinji scolding himself, well, let's face, the kid was repressed to a huge degree. I mean, come on, he once asked Misato to put more clothes on! Personally, I suspect his guardian before he came to Tokyo-3 was of the "Sex is the devil!" school of thought.

Thanks to all my readers and reviewers. Now for some fun.

* * *

Omakes

Comfort

A dark cloud hung over Maya Ibuki as she tromped back to her modest home. She had been forced into a job she didn't want, and she was doing terribly at it! The defeat of Units One and Two at the hands of the Seventh Angel was ample proof of that so far as she was concerned.

_Well, at least this miserable day is over with now,_ she mused as her apartment building came within sight.

She noticed a large delivery truck (no, not a DHL one) idling in front of the building, but she paid it no mind and headed upstairs toward her home.

But when she reached her floor she found that the door to her apartment was wide open and a handyman was standing outside, the remains of several large, wooden crates strewn about the hallway.

"What's going on here?!" Maya demanded of the man, nearly going into a frenzy at the thought of having to deal with more crap that day.

"Author feels bad about all the hard knocks you've been taking lately, so he decided to make it up to you," the handyman answered.

Maya blinked. "Author?"

"Oh, uh, I'm not supposed to break the fourth wall," the man said, nervously fiddling with his tool belt. "Think you can just forget I said that?"

"Uh, I suppose so," Maya said, "but how did you get into my apartment? And what are you doing here?"

The man grinned. "You'll see," he said. He then turned toward the apartment and shouted. "Hey! You finished yet, boys?"

"Yeah, all done, boss!" someone else called.

A half dozen other handymen emerged from Maya's apartment. Before the petite brunette could figure out what to say, they had gathered up the broken crates and departed.

_Please, let my apartment still be intact,_ Maya prayed to any deity that would listen as she entered her home.

Her apartment was more than intact, it turned out. A very formidable looking sound system that Maya had never laid eyes upon before sat in a corner, playing a soft, relaxing, and somewhat sensual song. The lights were dimmed, which was quite a trick considering that she hadn't had a dimmer switch that morning.

_I didn't order any of this,_ Maya thought. _It must be some kind of mistake. A mistake I'll probably get charged for!_

These dour thoughts didn't prevent her from investigating what lay upon her kitchen table, however. A box of expensive chocolates imported from Belgium sat there, along with a bottle of very nice champagne.

Both had already been opened, and a glass of the champagne had already been poured, seemingly waiting for her. Unable to resist, Maya popped a chocolate into her mouth, moaning in delight at the taste. She then downed the champagne, which made her feel pleasantly warm.

Feeling a bit more mellow now, Maya ventured further into her apartment, knowing the sound system and the other things she'd found couldn't account for all the crates she'd seen. She soon heard a soft sloshing sound and headed for her bathroom. She gasped at what she saw when she opened the door.

Her old bathtub had been replaced by a large Jacuzzi, and inside of it were blond, bikini-clad twins who looked remarkably like Ritsuko. Well, like Ritsuko would have looked if she were closer to Maya's age and was as "gifted" as the previous Ops Director had been.

"Well hello there," one of the twins greeted in a breathy voice.

"Care to join us?" the other asked.

Maya blinked…and a _huge_ grin slowly spread across her face.

_Ah, to hell with it. I don't _care_ if this was meant for someone else!_

"Charge!" the new Operations Director shouted, throwing a fist in the air before she ran across the room and practically leapt into her new Jacuzzi.

* * *

Unexpected

Wondering what the world had ever done for him to merit such service, Shinji went over to the two ladies and gently shook them.

"Five more minutes," Misao mumbled.

Asuka opened her eyes, realized she and Misao were clutching onto one another, and…smiled warmly?!

"Morgen, sleepy-head," the German said affectionately.

"Ohayo, Asuka-chan," Misao replied in kind.

Shinji blinked. "You two aren't freaked out about waking up together?"

Asuka frowned. "Why should we be? Isn't the how most people wake up after going to sleep together?"

Shinji gaped, then pinched the bridge of his nose to stop the geyser of blood from escaping. "You mean you two…?"

"Yup," Misao said cheerfully.

"Last night? Right next to me?" Shinji asked.

"Hai," Asuka said.

"And I slept through the whole thing and didn't get to watch?" Shinji asked.

"I don't know. Did you?" Misao replied.

Shinji paused for a long moment. "…I don't suppose I'll be invited to join in next time?"

Asuka wrinkled her nose in disgust. "No!"

"Sorry, Shinji-kun," Misao added.

Shinji's eye began to twitch. "I am going to throw myself off the roof of this building now," he announced in a perfectly level voice.

With that, he turned and walked out of the apartment, somehow looking totally calm and completely insane at once.

The moment he was gone, Misao and Asuka burst out into laughter and began to untangle themselves from one another.

"Oh man, that was _great_!" Asuka exclaimed. "He totally fell for it!"

"I told you he would!" Misao chuckled. "Shinji-kun is just so…"

She trailed off, suddenly looking grave. Asuka noticed and frowned. "What? What's wrong?"

"It just occurred to me that we need him to help save the world in about two hours," Misao said.

"So? You don't really believe he'd jump off the roof, do you?" Asuka asked.

"No, but he might run away," Misao said.

Absolute silence dominated the apartment for a brief moment. Then…

"SHINJI!" Misao and Asuka shouted in unison as they struggled to get to their feet and pursue the Third Child.

* * *

Like Father like Son?

"I can't believe you two perverts!" Hikari Horaki roared. "You didn't learn your lesson the first time?!"

Despite how futile it clearly was, Kensuke tried desperately to gather up and hide all the pictures of Misao and Asuka in what seemed like a loving embrace in bed. Toji, however, was more resigned to his fate.

"How did you find out this time?" the jock asked.

"For your information, Shinji told me," Hikari answered. "Even your friend thought this was too disgusting to be allowed!"

"B-But, he was the one who gave us this picture!" Kensuke protested.

"A likely story!" Hikari scoffed. "Now move, you two! You're going to be carrying buckets in detention and cleaning the classroom until you're in college!"

* * *

Some time later, Shinji Ikari sat in class, very aware of the two pairs of female eyes currently on him but showing no sign of it.

"See?" Misao whispered to Asuka. "I told you Shinji-kun is really kind and really brave when the situation calls for it."

"I have to admit his ending that photo business was pretty classy of him…" Asuka said.

"And you thought he was some kind of pervert!" Misao said.

"Yeah, I was really wrong about him," Asuka said with a dreamy sigh.

The two girl spent the entire rest of the class gazing at Shinji, a pink tinge gracing both their faces.

Shinji grinned as he entwined his fingers and leaned his face on his hands. _Excellent,_ he thought. _Everything is proceeding according to the scenario…_


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

Chapter Eight: **Lava Diver/Conflict**

The shopping mall in downtown Tokyo-3 was truly a wonder to behold, if for nothing else than the sheer size of the place. It was an enormous monument to capitalism, rivaled only by a handful of others on the planet, where one could seemingly purchase any widget one's heart desired.

This fine day saw two shoppers, one male and one female, walking through the huge mall. They looked like two perfectly ordinary people, though given their positions in NERV, most would regard them as anything but ordinary.

"Ah, it's so good to be out and about after being stuck in the apartment for so long! And the mall's the perfect place to relax for a bit!"

"…if you say so. Why are we here again, anyway?"

Misao pouted. "What? You don't want to spend time with me, Shinji-kun? Is that it?"

"No, no! That's not it at all!" Shinji reassured her, not immediately realizing that she was teasing him. "But I thought you were done shopping."

Misao laughed. "A woman is never done shopping, Shinji-kun," she said, wagging a finger.

Shinji knew he was quite unable to argue with Misao on the subject of women do or don't do, so he just kept silent. The Third Child smiled slightly. It was funny, really; after the Seventh was destroyed, he couldn't wait to get away from Asuka for a little while, despite having grown more sympathetic of her at the end. Yet when Misao, who Shinji had been in the company of almost as much as the Second Child recently, had asked him to accompany her on a little outing, he'd found himself gladly agreeing and trashing his plans for some alone time.

Though, perhaps he would've thought twice had he known they were going to the mall…

He was so lost in thought that he didn't really notice much about the store he was following Misao into.

"What do you think, Shinji? Is it me?" she asked.

He snapped back to the present and came perilously close to passing out when he saw Misao holding up a tiny black string bikini. He opened and closed his mouth several times, trying to say something even as his mind created images of Misao in the brief swimsuit against his will, but he failed to emit any kind of sound.

Misao laughed. "I'll take that as a sign of your approval," she said. She took another look at the bikini and sobered. "I'm not sure there's any point to my buying it, though. I probably won't get to use it. It's not like I'm going on the trip."

"You mean the class trip to Okinawa?" Shinji asked uncertainly. With everything else that was going on in his life, he was only vaguely aware of the happenings at school most of the time.

"Yeah," Misao sighed. "I can't head off to Okinawa in the middle of this war against the Angels."

"Why not?" Shinji asked.

"Why not?" she echoed, surprised. "Shinji, I'm an EVA pilot. We can't just leave the city whenever we please."

"I know we can't, but what about just you?" he asked. "We should be able to hold down the fort for three days. There probably won't be any Angel attacks in that time anyway. You might as well go and have fun, even if the rest of us can't."

"Why don't you go?" she countered. "You're the only pilot with a backup after all, and you've done the most fighting. You deserve a break."

"I'm really not a vacation person," the boy muttered. "I can't swim, anyway, so I don't think I'd enjoy myself much. Besides, you're the one who's had to settle into a new life, learn how to pilot EVA, _and_ still be the de facto Operations Director. You deserve time off more than I do."

Misao found herself absurdly touched by how considerate he was of her. She actually had to fight off tears for a moment.

"No, I can't go and leave all of you here. It wouldn't be right," she said, then grinned. "Besides, can you imagine how Asuka would react if I went and she wasn't allowed to?"

Shinji cringed. "I'd rather not."

They shared a brief laugh over that. Then, Misao reluctantly moved to put the swimsuit back on the clothes rack.

She just looked so sad as she replaced it that Shinji impulsively spoke up. "Why don't you buy it anyway? I'm sure you'll manage to find some use for it."

Misao paused for a moment, then a mischievous grin spread over her face. "Why, Shinji-kun, I do believe that you want to see me wearing this," she said in a breathy voice.

"Wha? I, uh…well…" Shinji stammered, blushing furiously.

She had caught him in the perfect trap, he realized. Shinji, being as repressed as he was, could never proclaim that yes, he really wanted his flat mate to model swimwear for him. On the other hand, if he told her that he didn't want her to do that, it would probably be the most blatant lie he'd ever told in his entire life.

_I really walked into that one,_ a small part of the Third Child's mind thought ruefully, even as he continued to stutter helplessly.

"Well, I can't deprive my best friend and a fellow pilot, now can I?" Misao said, picking up the bikini again and grinning toothily. "I'll just have to pick this up and find an excuse to wear it some time."

The idea that Misao would don something so revealing for him of all people left Shinji mentally reeling. The boy didn't manage to recover until after Misao had

had paid for her new bikini and the two had already left the store. When he regained some semblance of lucid thought, a very important realization struck him.

"Misao…am I really your best friend?" he asked.

She blinked, mentally replaying her words from a few moments earlier and realizing that she had, indeed, referred to him as her best friend. She hadn't meant to, but it had slipped out anyway.

Misao almost told him that of course he was on reflex, but she checked herself before she could. Much as she didn't want to hurt the sensitive boy by taking back her declaration that he was her best friend, she wanted to lie to him even less.

Yet, the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she hadn't exaggerated what Shinji meant to her. Though she probably would've said that Ritsuko was her best friend if someone had asked her, now that she considered it, Misao wasn't at all sure that was true anymore. At times, Ritsuko seemed to be amused and curious about Misao's problems, as if she were some kind of psychological experiment. Those times had grown significantly more common since her physical regression. And Ritsuko was becoming less and less helpful as a sympathetic ear in times of need, as Misao felt she couldn't tell the blonde about many of her problems without having her little 'family' broken up.

Shinji, on the other hand, always took her seriously (too much so for his own good at times), and Misao honestly wasn't sure if she could have coped with her transformation without his sympathy and support.

"Yes, Shinji-kun, you're my best friend," Misao answered.

He smiled brightly, a rare act for Shinji Ikari, to say the least. Misao grinned back, then she quickly turned away, feeling her face grow warm again thanks to her treacherous hormones.

* * *

During those rare times when she wasn't trying to understand the Angels or trying to cobble together some highly experimental piece of technology with all of mankind depending on her, Ritsuko's job actually had its sedate moments.

She was enjoying one of these at the current time, nursing a cup of steaming coffee as she strolled into the command center.

"Hello, Maya," she greeted her former protégé.

"Hello, sempai," Maya greeted cheerfully, looking up from the book she was reading.

Said book, Ritsuko noted, was _The Art of War_ by Sun Tzu. The blonde shook her head, wondering what the world was coming to when circumstances drove gentle Maya to put _that_ on her bookshelf.

"So, has anything been going on?" Ritsuko asked.

"Not much," Maya said. "The upgrade to Unit Zero's armor is 90 percent complete. Oh, and the Children's class is going on a trip to Okinawa."

"A school trip?" Ritsuko asked while refilling her mug of coffee. "That seems pretty risky in times like these."

Maya shrugged in response. "They're safer in Okinawa than they are here, I suppose," she said. "Besides, it's not something we have to worry about. All the pilots will be skipping the trip and staying in the city."

"Even Misato?" Ritsuko asked, looking mildly surprised.

"Even her," Maya confirmed with a nod. "I'm not entirely sure why, though I'm not complaining, mind you. I certainly wouldn't order her to stay here. Not after all the help she's given me. Unless something happened to Shinji, of course," she added, almost as an afterthought.

Ritsuko smirked. "Knowing Asuka, I'd say Misao decided to stay home mostly to avoid conflicts on the home front."

* * *

"What?! I can't go on the trip?!" Asuka shouted.

Pen-Pen, who'd been enjoying a nice, hot bath, started at the loud yell from the kitchen.

"Yup," Misao answered Asuka, putting down her mug of tea.

"Why not?" Asuka demanded.

"It's part of your job," Misao replied curtly.

"You mean I'm on permanent standby?"

"We all are, Asuka," Misao said.

"What idiot decided that?" Asuka snapped.

"Technically Maya, but really me," Misao replied, smiling dangerously at Asuka.

Asuka paused for a moment, considering whether she dared to push Misao any further. Since she knew Misao had a firm hold on their immediate superior's ear, Asuka decided, after a moment's consideration, that she did _not _dare and shifted the focus of her attention.

"Shinji! Why don't you stop hiding behind that cup of tea and talk some sense into this girl! Act like a man!" she demanded.

Shinji, who'd been silently observing the argument, his eyes darting back and forth between the two women like he was a spectator at a tennis match, was caught entirely by surprise. As a result, he blurted out the first response that came to mind.

"Honestly, I'm surprised that you thought we'd get to go," he said.

"So you've already given up?" she asked, a strangely superior glint in her eyes.

"I wouldn't say I've given up," Shinji said. "Misao and I talked about this just earlier today. You have to admit that the city's in big trouble if an Angel attacks and we're not here."

"Mere semantics," Asuka said dismissively. "You're the only one with a backup pilot and yet you're still staying here like a good little boy. You're so housebroken it's pathetic!"

Shinji frowned. "It's not like that at all, Asuka."

"Look," Misao said, butting her way back into the conversation. "I know how you feel, Asuka. I missed my first school trip thanks to Second Impact, and now I'm going to miss this one because of the Angels. But there's just no other way, not when an Angel could attack at any moment."

"So I get stuck on permanent standby status?" Asuka snapped, getting back to the heart of the argument. "Why are we the ones who always have to be ready to defend against them? Any good officer knows that the best defense is a good offense! Why can't we go on the offensive?"

"If we could do that, we certainly would," Misao said. "Look, think of this as an opportunity to get ahead for once. Or did you think I didn't know about these report cards yet?"

She held up a pair of computer discs.

Asuka flinched. Misao grinned predatorily. "The school sent them directly to Ritsuko, who gave them to me the other day when we went to NERV. I have to say I am _very_ disappointed with the both of you."

The Second Child desperately tried to come up with some kind of argument as to why those scores were irrelevant that might actually hold water. Before she could, however, Shinji spoke up.

"I can't speak for Asuka, but I'm doing better in school than you are, Misao," he said calmly, taking a sip of his tea.

"What?" Misao asked with a confused frown.

Shinji held up a disc very similar to the two Misao was holding. The purple haired pilot blanched. "How did you get that?" she demanded.

"Ritsuko-san gave it to me," Shinji answered. "She figured that since you aren't technically our guardian, we have as much right to see your grades as you have to see ours."

_Damn you, Rits!_ Misao thought, hoping the cat loving scientist choked on a hairball while trying to enjoy the laugh she'd doubtlessly gotten at her expense.

"Heh, heh," Misao forced a chuckle, sweating. "Well, really, my grades aren't all that important. I mean, I'm only in school for the sake of appearances. I already have a degree, after all."

"So do I!" Asuka exclaimed, grinning triumphantly. "And unlike you, I have one that has my legal name on it!"

Misao rubbed the back of her neck nervously, realizing she'd been cornered. She desperately cast her gaze about, looking for an escape. When she saw Pen-Pen emerging from the bathroom with a small towel draped over his shoulders, she decided it was probably the best she was going to get.

"Oh, look, I do believe it's time to give Pen-Pen a bath," Misao said, jumping up from the table, grabbing the penguin, and running into the bathroom with him.

A number of loud "Wark!" sounds soon followed.

Shinji looked silently at the door, feeling rather guilty for what he'd done, especially after Misao had so recently said he was her best friend. It _had_ been rather hypocritical of her to lecture him and Asuka about their grades when she was doing even worse, though. All the same, he hoped she wasn't angry with him.

Asuka chuckled. "You know, Third, I have to admit that you've got your moments."

"Uh, thanks," Shinji said. "So, you really have a degree?"

"Yeah, I graduated last year," she said, trying to sound as if it was no big deal. "I just don't understand why they're making me go to junior high here."

"Um, if you're a college graduate, then why are you having trouble in school here?" Shinji asked.

He recalled one of his old teachers ranting occasionally about how deficient western educational systems were, but he'd never expected they could be _that_ bad.

"I know all the answers but I can't read most of the questions," Asuka explained with a sigh. "I haven't learned all of the kanji yet."

"I see. So—"

Shinji was cut off by an especially loud "Wark!" from the bathroom, followed by Misao submitting that Pen-Pen was descended from chickens. He and Asuka exchanged a look.

"What do you think she's doing in there?" he asked.

"I don't think we want to know," Asuka replied.

Shinji decided he couldn't disagree with that.

* * *

The sound of Rei Ayanami diving into the Olympic sized swimming pool echoed throughout the mostly empty room. The recreational facilities provided by NERV were popular with the employees, but as it was currently business hours, only the pilots could make use of the place at the moment.

Asuka strode in from one of the adjacent locker rooms, noting with amusement that Shinji was still fully dressed and working at a laptop at one of the tables that was by the side of the pool.

She shook her head. It was ridiculous how much of a good little boy Shinji was, though he wasn't as completely hopeless as she'd initially believed.

Smirking slightly, she decided she'd have a little fun before Misao showed up by flaunting herself a bit.

Not that she liked him or anything. Asuka wasn't interested in Shinji, Gott no. Besides, Shinji and Misao had feelings for one another; this was rather plain to her, living with them and all. (Asuka couldn't quite determine whether the chemistry between the fourteen-year-old boy and the fourteen-but-really-twenty-nine-year-old woman was scandalous or not. But Asuka, who never shy about labeling people perverts, was leaning toward thinking it was). But that didn't mean she couldn't fry the poor boy's mind a little.

"What have you got there, Shinji?" she called, walking over to him.

"Basic physics primer," the boy replied glumly, not looking up.

"Oh, you're such an obedient student," she mocked.

He sighed. "Well, I'll have to study it anyway, so I might as well…" he trailed off, eyes bulging as he looked up and down her body, clad in a red and white bikini.

_Damn, I'm good,_ Asuka thought with a smirk, placing her hands on her hips.

"Since I can't go diving in Okinawa, I figure I'll do it here," she stated.

"Do what?" Shinji asked, a number of his neurons obviously having been overloaded.

"Diving, of course. So, what are you working on?" she asked, leaning over to examine Shinji's laptop, pleased by the little strangled sound he made as her 'feminine attributes' came near to his face.

"Oh, this is easy!" she said, reaching for the keyboard and typing quickly. "There, all done. It's a piece of cake when you know how."

"How did you…oh, right, college degree," Shinji said.

"That's right, baka," she said, standing up straight again and putting her hands on her hips. "So, what does this one say?"

"It's, uh, a question about thermal expansion," Shinji answered.

"Thermal expansion, oh that's easy," Asuka said dismissively. "To put it simply, most things expand when they got hot, and shrink when they get cold."

"Okay, that sounds easy enough," Shinji said.

"Look, if I were to warm up my breasts with my hands, do you think they'd grow bigger or smaller?" she asked, placing her hands over her chest.

"I think you're more likely to cause a part of Shinji-kun's anatomy to expand than your own by doing that, Asuka," Misao (sort of) came to Shinji's rescue as she entered the pool area.

Asuka took her hands off her assets, grumbling slightly. Just when it had been really getting fun!

"So, what do you think, Shinji-kun?" Misao asked, walking up to the boy. "I know you were just dying to see me wear this!"

Shinji's jaw dropped as Misao strode into view. The black bikini she was wearing made Asuka's choice of swimwear look positively modest in comparison, displaying her perfect figure as fully as possible without risking running afoul of laws against public nudity. He tried to pry his eyes away from his housemate and backup pilot, but found that he seemed to have lost all ability to move his body.

Asuka scowled slightly, not pleased at having been upstaged. Misao might not be any threat to her as a pilot, but as a woman, she was one of the very few people her own age who could make Asuka feel just the tiniest bit inadequate.

The German huffed, heading over to get her scuba gear.

"I couldn't wear bikinis before, thanks to this scar I used to have," Misao informed Shinji, running a hand slowly down her torso. "But thanks to the incident that made me your age, it's all gone. I have to say I'm thankful for it. I don't think I was made for a one piece."

Shinji didn't even try to muster a reply. Asuka's little show followed immediately by Misao's had just completely killed his ability to think straight. In fact, the only nearly coherent thing in his head was a memory of Toji saying something about "excess hotness" killing him.

_Hmm, he's no fun in this state,_ Misao thought, crossing her arms as she pondered how to fix this problem.

She walked over to Asuka, who hadn't yet strapped on the small air tank she'd obtained from who-knew-where. Misao leaned over and began to whisper into the redhead's ear. An evil smile quickly appeared on Asuka's face.

Shinji was starting to regain feeling in his extremities, but he still hadn't recovered enough from his fellow pilots' overwhelming 'displays' to do anything besides mentally brace himself as he watched them approach.

So he put up no resistance as they grabbed hold of his chair and flung him into the pool.

The cold water did get him moving again, though.

"Oh god!" he exclaimed, flailing about wildly in the water. "I can't swim! Help me!"

To his shock and horror, Misao and Asuka remained where they were, laughing. He knew Asuka didn't exactly like him, but he never would have believed for a moment that the redhead could just stand there and watch him die, even laughing while she did so. Misao was an even bigger shock. He knew he had cut the legs out from underneath her argument when she'd been scolding them about their grades, but this was a bit much for revenge!

Shinji might have flailed about for who knew how long, if not for the First Child coming up from underneath the water for air.

"Ikari," Rei spoke up, "stand up."

Shinji suddenly realized he was in the shallow end of the pool and did what the First Child had suggested. "Oh," he said, embarrassed.

The Second and Fourth Children's laughter increased as Shinji climbed out of the pool, sopping wet from the chest down. The fact that the water in the shallow end didn't reach near to his chest, meaning that much of his soaking had resulted from his own needless thrashing about, only made the whole situation more hilarious to them.

Shinji scowled at them, to utterly no effect, as he headed off toward the boy's locker room to change into dry clothes, leaving wet footprints as he went. To his credit, he made it all the way back there before the first snicker escaped him.

* * *

Meanwhile, up in a research station by Mount Asuma, Captain Maya Ibuki was having a far less relaxing day. "Send the probe down another 200," she ordered.

"Ma'am, you're going too deep," one of the researchers protested.

"We need to know what's down there," Maya insisted. "Two hundred more."

The researcher sighed and did as she asked, lowering the probe deeper into the volcano. "The armor is cracking under the pressure."

"Fifty more," Maya ordered.

"Captain Ibuki!" the head researcher whined.

"I'm sorry, but this could be vital to the survival of mankind," Maya said. "NERV will compensate you if the probe's destroyed. Fifty more."

With a sigh, he complied, lowering the probe far further down into the lava than it had ever been designed to go.

"We're monitoring a reaction," Makoto said from his place at one of the terminals.

"Start the analysis," Maya ordered.

"Right," he replied, telling the computer to get to work.

Maya watched his screen with baited breath, hoping it wasn't too obvious how anxious she was. A moment later, a loud, unpleasant sound filled the room.

"The probe has exploded due to the extreme pressure," announced the station's AI over the loudspeaker.

"Did you get it?" Maya asked.

"Just barely," answered Makoto. "The pattern is blue. It's an Angel all right."

Maya nodded, then stood up straight and turned to address the group of scientists present. "This station is now under the jurisdiction of NERV," she announced in what she hoped was a voice that did not invite objections. "All contact with the outside world is prohibited, and all data pertaining to this event is hereby classified top secret."

Not waiting for an agreement, Maya walked out into the empty hallway, taking out her cell phone and dialing NERV. "Shigeru? This is Maya. I need to speak to Commander Ikari on a secure line."

* * *

Shinji, Asuka, Rei, and Misao all looked down at the image of the unborn Angel that was projected upon the floor in one of the operation planning rooms of NERV headquarters.

"Is that an Angel?" Shinji asked.

"Yes," Ritsuko answered. "This is some sort of embryonic form that precedes the adult stage. Commander Ikari has personally ordered an A-17, an offensive assault on this Angel. This operation's objective is to capture this Angel alive and intact."

"And if we fail?" Asuka asked.

"Then you must destroy it," Ritsuko answered simply. "Understood?"

"Roger!" the four pilots chorused.

"The designated pilot for this operation will be—"

Asuka cut the scientist off. "Oh, pick me please! I love to go diving!" she exclaimed, throwing her hand into the air as if she was in class.

_Please don't pick me,_ Shinji thought, not the least bit eager to plunge into molten lava. The whole plan just seemed to have "suicide mission" written all over it.

"Yes, Asuka, you will carry out the mission," Ritsuko said.

"Sure! It's gonna be easy!" the Second Child said, confident as always.

"And me?" Rei asked.

"The prototype cannot use the special equipment necessary for this mission," Sakura answered.

"Rei and Unit Zero will remain here on standby," Ritsuko added.

"I see," Rei answered.

"Aw, poor little Rei, she doesn't get to have any fun," Asuka taunted.

"Asuka," Shinji and Misao both said in warning.

It was impossible to notice it in the dim light of the room, but Rei blushed slightly at having her friends come to her defense. Asuka just "hmphed" in response.

"What about me, Rits?" Misao asked.

Ritsuko smiled slightly. "Maya has requested that you assist her in overseeing the operation," she answered. "Once we've got the EVA's on the move, we'll transport you to the mobile command center via helicopter."

Misao nodded. "Roger."

"Now that an A-17 has been declared, we need to get moving as quickly as possible," Ritsuko said. "All of you, move out."

"Roger!"

* * *

"Oh...Asuka's not going to like this," Shinji commented grimly as he looked upon Unit Two, which was currently clad in the bulky Type-D equipment.

The three other pilots had all donned their plug suits, as per regulations, and were waiting for Asuka to come out of the locker room in her heat resistant plug suit.

"Maybe," Misao replied. "But I hope not. It's not _that_ bad, and Asuka can be surprisingly rational when—"

"Noooo!" the Second Child wailed, appearing in the doorway to the EVA hanger. "No way! How could you?"

Shinji and Misao turned to see Asuka awkwardly making her way through the door. Said awkwardness was caused by the fact that her heat resistant suit had inflated hugely, making Asuka look like some kind of huge cherry with four limbs and a head.

_Don't laugh,_ Shinji commanded himself sternly, keeping his face totally blank. _She'll kill you if you laugh. Slowly._

Misao apparently wasn't nearly so worried. She began to snicker at the sight, albeit very softly.

"This exosuit is designed to protect you," Ritsuko explained calmly, her hands jammed in the pockets of her lab coat. "Type-D equipment is designed to withstand extreme environmental duress, not for high fashion."

"Is that my Unit Two?" Asuka asked, gazing up at the EVA's head in the exosuit's transparent faceplate. She turned and glared at Ritsuko. "Forget it! I won't do it! I'm not appearing in public in this stupid thing! This is the sort of thing we have Shinji for!" she added, stabbing a finger at him.

"I'm so disappointed! I was so looking forward to seeing you in action!"

Everyone looked up to see Kaji on a nearby catwalk, leaning casually on the railing and grinning down at Asuka. The Second Child rushed back to the doorway in mortification, cursing in German as she went.

"Dr. Akagi, I can't let Kaji see me in this thing!" Asuka cried.

Misao rolled her eyes. "I'll pilot Unit Two in her place," the Fourth Child volunteered.

"Ha!" Asuka barked, turning to glare at Misao. "Nice try, but you can't fool me twice! I know that you can barely sync past the absolute borderline in my Unit Two. You can't pilot it!"

Rei raised a hand. "I will go in Unit Two," she said in her perpetually soft voice.

Emotion took over the Second Child, and Asuka was across the room far faster than Shinji would have believed possible, especially in that absurd looking plug suit. The redhead slapped Rei's hand back down. "No!" she snapped. "I'd rather go out in this stupid thing than let _you_ do it!"

Shinji was taken aback by the naked contempt in Asuka's voice, far beyond anything she had yet directed at him. _What's she got against Rei?_

While Asuka was apologizing to her EVA for the D-type equipment, Misao took Shinji aside. "Okay, I'm going to go change and head for the mobile command center," she said. "I'll be helping Maya command as usual. You shouldn't have anything to worry about, though. Technically you're there in case the Angel escapes Asuka and gets out of the volcano, but the odds of that happening are slim to none. All you need to do is stand outside the volcano and wait for her to do her thing."

He nodded. "Can we really do this?" he asked, unknowingly echoing the very question Misato had asked his father before sending Unit One into combat for the first time. "Sending someone into a volcano just seems…crazy."

"Most of what we do here is crazy," Misao replied, a trace of humor in her voice. "Don't worry, Shinji-kun, the D-type equipment is really tough. Asuka will be fine."

"All right," Shinji said. "So, I'll see you after the mission?"

Misao nodded. "Count on it," she said. "Now I have to go. I've got a flight to catch."

* * *

Thanks to the D-type equipment, the EVA carrier tasked with flying Unit Two to Mount Asuma couldn't reach near what its usual top speed would be. Having the bulky cyborg dangling from the underbelly of the plane, as opposed to docked horizontally as usual, just made the plane significantly less aerodynamic and thus slower.

So it was no great surprise that Misao's transport helicopter beat the EVA's to the site by a good few minutes, despite being less powerful a craft.

"Hello, Maya," she greeted as she walked in, finding the Operations Director brooding as she looked at the main screen. "How is everything going?"

"Smoothly so far," Maya answered. "All the preparations for this operation were made without the slightest hitch."

"Let's hope the trend continues," Misao said. "What's the ETA on Units One and Two?"

"They're just arriving now, actually," Hyuga said from his place at his terminal.

Misao nearly started giving out orders but checked herself, knowing Maya would never get fully comfortable with her new job if she wasn't allowed to do it herself.

"Good," Maya said. "Get the crane in position and reposition the laser bore. The pilots are to standby for now."

Outside, machinery that had either been commandeered from the research station or hastily erected by NERV for the operation was thrown into motion as everything was made ready to dunk a person into boiling hot magma. Which, to put it lightly, would be a dodgy proposition at the best of times.

And since there was an Angel waiting in the lava, it was safe to say that the current situation didn't exactly qualify as the best of times.

From inside Unit One, which was still in the regular B-type equipment, Shinji spied a number of small dots flying through the sky in formation. "What are those?" he asked.

"The air force," Ritsuko answered over the radio.

"Are they here to help us?" Asuka asked cheerfully.

"Not exactly," Ritsuko replied in a dry tone. "If we fail to capture or kill the Angel, they'll use N2 depth charges to destroy it, along with us."

The Second Child was clearly taken aback by _that_ answer. "This job sucks!" Asuka exclaimed.

"You're just now figuring that out?" Shinji groaned.

"Stuff it, Third!" Asuka snapped.

Meanwhile, in the mobile command center, Misao was just learning about the bombers for the first time herself. "Who ordered that?" she demanded, not looking at Maya.

"Commander Ikari did," Maya answered softly.

"I see," Misao replied, glaring at the view screen.

Maybe it was just the hormones overriding her professionalism, but she was furious that the Commander had so little faith in them. As a soldier, Misao understood why Gendo would take such precautions, but she couldn't help feeling her ire raise. Having those planes ready to blow the Children to kingdom come was definitely _not_ going to do anything for the pilots' mental state for this mission. She was also more than a little peeved at how willing he was to kill her charges.

_Especially Shinji…_

That was definitely the hormones, she decided, forcing her mind back to the matters at hand.

A huge laser was maneuvered over the volcano, blasting a 'tunnel' into the molten rock for Unit Two. It was moved away, and soon Unit Two took its place suspended above the magma.

The various technicians gave Maya the all ready and she nodded. "Pilot Soryu, are you ready?" she asked.

"Ready when you are," Asuka replied.

"Begin lowering Unit Two," Maya ordered.

Shinji watched with trepidation as the other EVA began to descend toward the lava, not really listening to the chatter from the command center that was being transmitted to him. People were simply not meant to go into lava.

It was so simple a concept, he didn't understand how NERV could fail to get it.

"Hey, Shinji!" Asuka called, getting his attention. "Look! Giant stroke entry!"

Unit Two spread its legs, one forwards and one backwards, as it hit the lava, probably the most graceful thing Asuka could make her EVA do while it was stuck in the bulky exosuit.

Shinji heaved a small sigh, then chuckled despite himself. _She's completely nuts,_ he thought ruefully.

The mirth he'd gotten from Asuka's antics was short-lived, however, soon vanishing as he watched the cables connected to Unit Two continue to unwind, plunging Asuka ever deeper into what was possibly the most hellish environment on Earth.

Asuka was rather…abrasive most of the time, but that didn't mean that Shinji wanted to see her killed. Really, she wasn't so bad as he'd originally thought.

"The EVA has reached the target's estimated depth," Sakura reported after a number of excruciatingly long minutes. "No sign of the Angel. We're already at the maximum safe depth for the D-type equipment."

"Recalculate," Maya ordered, rubbing her temples. "Find the Angel's position."

"Shall we continue to descend, ma'am?" Sakura asked while Hyuga and Ritsuko got to work.

Maya bit her lip. "Yes," she decided, "but go slowly and keep a very close eye on the pressure gauges."

Sakura nodded and keyed in the commands to keep sending EVA Unit Two downwards. "Maximum allowed depth plus 50…maximum allowed depth plus 100," she counted off. "Ma'am! A crack's formed in the outer layer of the armor! Progressive knife has been lost!"

"Halt descent!" Maya ordered. "Prepare to retrieve Unit Two."

"What?" Misao exclaimed. "But we haven't even made contact with the target yet! Keep going!"

Maya was taken aback, but a moment later her eyes hardened in a way they never had before she'd become the Operations Director. "Pilot Katsuragi, while I've appreciated all the help you've given me and value your input, I'm the one in command here," she said. "I will not risk a human life so recklessly, let alone the life of a child. We'll evacuate the area and let the air force use the N2 depth charges. If that doesn't kill it, it'll certainly get it to come out so we can fight it on land."

"But we need that Angel intact!" Misao argued. "And the only way we'll get it is if you don't give up on this operation!"

"Misao?" Shinji chimed in, sounding confused and perhaps even slightly frightened.

"We can't quit on this!" Misao exclaimed, though it was unclear whether she was answering Shinji or Maya. "Continue the descent!"

"I agree with Misao!" Asuka spoke up before Maya could respond. "I'm okay, I can go on!"

Maya closed her eyes and sighed. "Fine," she said, defeated. "Continue descent."

Reluctantly, Sakura began to again start lowering Unit Two deeper into the volcano.

"How you doing, Asuka?" Misao asked into the brittle silence that now filled the mobile command center and the radio channels.

"Fine, if you don't count the fact that I'm covered in sweat," Asuka grumbled. "I just want to get this over with and take a shower."

"There are hot springs in this area," Misao said. "We'll visit them after this operation's complete."

"Sounds good," Asuka said gamely.

"EVA is now at 1780, the new estimated target depth," Sakura reported.

"I see it!" Asuka exclaimed, squinting into the murky picture her cockpit display was giving her. "Preparing cage for capture!"

"Be careful," Ritsuko said. "Because of the currents in the magma, you'll only get one shot at this."

"Understood," Asuka said, moving the cage into position.

Everyone in the command center held their breath.

"Electromagnetic cage has been activated," Asuka reported. "The target has been captured. No problems detected, I'm beginning my ascent."

There was a collective sigh of relief from everyone present. "Great job, Asuka!" Misao cheered.

"Well, did you expect anything less?" Asuka asked arrogantly as Unit Two's tether was reversed and the EVA began to rise up toward the surface, carrying the captive Angel.

"Asuka, are you all right?" Shinji asked.

"Of course," she replied. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. This was easy!"

Inside the mobile command center, Ritsuko looked over at Maya and Misao out of the corner of her eye. The two were pointedly avoiding looking at one another, generating enough tension to keep the mood uncomfortable despite the success of the operation.

Suddenly, a loud klaxon went off, startling everyone.

"It's going crazy!" Asuka cried.

"No!" Ritsuko shouted. "The Angel's begun to hatch! This is much earlier than we expected!"

"Cage status?" Misao barked.

"There's no way the cage can hold it!" Hyuga answered. "It's growing too quickly!"

"Damn it," Maya swore. "Asuka, jettison the cage! Forget catching it alive and go for the kill!"

"You got it!" Asuka said as she let the rapidly growing Angel loose.

She reached for her progressive knife with the D-type armor's clumsy, claw-like hands, only to make a rather disturbing discovery. "I forgot I dropped the prog knife!" she exclaimed, fear seeping into the Second Child's voice.

"No!" Maya exclaimed, having forgotten that as well. "Shinji! Prepare to send down yours!"

"Roger!"

Asuka saw the Angel approach her and reacted quickly. "Jettisoning holster!" she said, releasing the string of battery packs that had been for powering the now abandoned cage.

It was like dropping ballast, and Unit Two jerked upwards, dodging the Angel's first pass. "It's fast!" she said. "Hurry up with that prog knife already!"

"Shinji, do it!" Maya commanded.

"Right!" Shinji replied, flinging down his knife as hard as he could.

"Here it comes again!" Asuka cried as the Angel came in for another pass. This time she didn't have anything to drop. "No! Get away from me!" she shouted, as though the Angel was some kind of annoying dog.

If the Angel heard her plea, it ignored it, slamming into her EVA and clamping its mouth down onto the helmet of the D-type equipment. "Damn you!" Asuka screamed.

"Heat shield failing!" reported Hyuga.

"Left leg damaged!" added Sakura.

The progressive knife finally fell into Asuka's range of view, and she seized it desperately, frantically stabbing at the Angel's core. However, the huge knife failed to penetrate the Angel's core. "It's not working!"

"Oh no! The extreme heat has altered the Angel's molecular structure! The progressive knife won't work on it!" Ritsuko exclaimed, abruptly realizing just how dire the situation was.

Misao's eyes suddenly widened. "Asuka! Thermal expansion!"

"Right!" the Second Child said, getting the idea immediately.

She reached up and cut her coolant lines, grabbing one of the hoses and pressing the severed end to the Angel's core. "Transfer all coolant pressure to cable number three! Do it now!"

Hyuga leapt to the task at once, and soon coolant was gushing out onto the Angel's core.

"Of course, the coolant will cause the core to contract and make it vulnerable to attack!" Ritsuko said, figuring out what Asuka was up to…and wondering why she herself hadn't thought of it.

With a savage scream, Asuka brought the progressive knife down on the Angel's core, this time managing to pierce it. The beast writhed for several seconds before finally releasing its hold on Asuka, falling down into the lava.

A sudden jolt cut her victory celebration short, however. Asuka looked up and realized that the last cable connecting her to the crane up above was rapidly shredding under the weight of her EVA. "I've done it," she said softly, "but that's it. I'm done for."

Asuka had always known that death in battle was a possibility, but not until now had she really _believed _it. And not only was she now faced with her own demise, but it was going to happen in one of the worst ways imaginable.

The last cable went, and Unit Two began to fall deeper into the lava. Asuka didn't scream as exosuit began to implode around her EVA. She looked down and closed her eyes, wondering if she would see Mama again…

The entry plug suddenly shook around her and she looked up, shocked to see Unit One holding onto the cables connected to her EVA with one hand and the ones still connected to the crane with the other.

"Shinji!" Asuka said, shocked. Then she grinned. "Idiot. You're such a show off."

"Bring them up, maximum speed!" Maya ordered.

"Yes, ma'am!" Hyuga confirmed, and the crane began to head upwards, bringing the two EVA's back to the surface.

Maya leaned over to Misao. "Don't do that again," she hissed in the former Operations Director's ear.

* * *

_Whew, after all that, the hot spring will sure feel nice,_ Misao thought as she walked through the hall of the hotel and spa the pilots were staying at for the night. _And I think Asuka and I ought to be able to make Shinji go totally ballistic from our side of hot spring. That'll be fun. Just what the doctor ordered._

Shinji suddenly appeared in the hallway, as if summonsed by the mere thought of him.

"Hey, Shinji-kun," Misao greeted cheerfully.

"What the hell was with you today?" he demanded.

Shocked, Misao took an involuntary step backwards. Shinji rarely cursed, and he never spoke like that. "Wh-what?"

"Back at the battle," Shinji growled. "You went totally crazy! You could well have gotten Asuka killed!"

Misao scowled as she realized what he was upset about. "Shinji-kun, this is a war against savage beasts that want to destroy all of humanity. We can't be squeamish about these confrontations," she said, trying to keep her cool. "We need to seize every possible opportunity we can get."

"By killing one of the pilots?" Shinji shot back.

"Shinji, sometimes we have to take risks. I thought you were starting to understand what war is about," Misao said.

"That risk was a stupid one," Shinji said. "Your plans are usually crazy, but they're crazy in a smart way. Your insisting that Asuka keep going down was just reckless!"

"Asuka agreed with me," Misao argued.

"Asuka is…Asuka!" Shinji protested, waving his hands about wildly in an attempt to emphasize the point.

Misao scowled at Shinji, feeling all the annoyance and resentment toward the Third Child that had been building up inside of her for months now escaping her control and finally coming to head.

"Damn it, Shinji, why do you always have to be so selfish?!" she exploded.

Surprised, Shinji backed up a step before he seemed to mentally regroup. "S-Selfish?!" he sputtered, incredulous. "How am I being selfish? I was worried about Asuka's safety!"

"You always have to be the damn hero!" Misao barked. "I _thought_ that you started working so hard at piloting because you'd finally started to grow up and realize that half-assing it wasn't going to help you or anyone else survive. I thought you were coming to understand the situation we're in. But I guess I was wrong. You're acting like a child, and you've been putting your heart into piloting because you want the glory, haven't you?"

"I have not!" Shinji retorted.

"Of course not," Misao scoffed before she turned and began to walk off.

His already angry scowl darkening further as what Misao had accused him of began to really sink in, Shinji responded without thinking. "I guess I was wrong, too!" he called after her. "I thought you cared about us as more than something to use to kill the Angels with!"

With that, he turned on his heel and stalked off in the opposite direction that Misao was going.

* * *

A few minutes later, Asuka appeared in the hallway, wondering where her fellow pilots had gone off to.

"Hey!" a voice suddenly called from the lobby of the building. "Is anyone from the NERV group here? Hello!"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming," Asuka called back.

The guy turned out to be a parcel deliveryman bearing a moderately sized box. Asuka's level of interest went up considerably when she saw that Kaji had sent it, and quickly signed the invoice and sent the guy on his way.

"Maybe Kaji was so confident of my inevitable victory that had got me a present to congratulate me before the battle," she speculated aloud.

In her mind, the contents of the box had already become some rather slinky lingerie, accompanied by a note from Kaji requesting she wear it for him the next time they could catch some private time together.

So she was very rudely surprised when Pen-Pen popped out of the box the second she opened it, very nearly dropping the box to the floor in her shock. Asuka sighed. Another pleasant fantasy shattered, this time by a penguin, of all things.

"Come on, Pen-Pen," she said with another sigh. "You can come to the hot springs with me. It looks like you're the only company I'll get there."

"Wark!"

* * *

Author's Notes: And it all started out so well for them this chapter, too. The Eight Angel always struck me as a more logical place to get freaked out by how far Misato was willing to go to get her revenge than the Tenth Angel, which is where it happened in canon. I mean, Misato had Asuka dunked into a volcano for a pre-emptive strike, then pushed the D-type equipment past the limit.

Anyway, I think at least a few of you saw this conflict coming. I pondered how exactly the argument should go for a while, and I'm still not sure I got it exactly right.

Ryousanki, heh, yeah, I knew that "shiest" wasn't right. I meant to either look it up or replace it with something else, but somehow I forgot. I usually try not to use more German than "Mein Gott" because I don't know the language. If I find myself needing to insert German, I'll certainly ask you. Thanks for the offer. :)

Fifth Horseman, thanks for the suggestion about Maya. I'll probably make use of it later in the story.

Thanks as always to all my readers and reviewers.

* * *

Omakes

Excess Hotness (again)

"Look, if I were to warm up my breasts with my hands, do you think they'd grow bigger or smaller?" she asked, placing her hands over her chest.

"I think you're more likely to cause a part of Shinji-kun's anatomy to expand than your own by doing that, Asuka," Misao came to Shinji's rescue, sort of, as she entered the pool area.

Asuka took her hands off her assets, grumbling slightly. Just when it had been really getting fun!

"So, what do you think, Shinji-kun?" Misao asked, walking up to the boy. "I know you were just dying to see me wear this!"

Shinji's jaw dropped as Misao strode into view. The black bikini she was wearing made Asuka's choice of swimwear look positively modest in comparison, displaying her perfect figure as fully as possible without risking running afoul of laws against public nudity.

A geyser of blood suddenly erupted from Shinji's nose, actually rocketing the Third Child several feet into the air before he crashed back to the tiled floor!

Misao and Asuka traded a glance, then looked down at the Third Child's unmoving form for several seconds in absolute silence before either of them reacted.

"_Wow!_" Asuka exclaimed. "I must be even hotter than I thought I was! Which is really, really hot!"

"You?!" Misao exclaimed. "That was all me who did that to him!"

"Pah! As if!" Asuka scoffed. "That was clearly a delayed reaction to my overwhelming beauty!"

Misao snorted. "Oh, yeah, and he just _happened_ to do that while he was looking at me!"

While the two girls squabbled, neither of them noticed that Rei had surfaced and retrieved her cell phone…

Suddenly, a small squad of Section Two agents burst into the recreation area, accompanied by a medical team.

"Who did this to the Third Child?" the lead agent demanded.

Asuka and Misao were silent for a brief moment, then—

"She did it!" both yelled, pointing at the other.

* * *

Experiment Gone Awry

"Hello, Dr. Akagi," Asuka said cheerfully as she bounced into the lab. "Any breakthroughs today?"

Ritsuko sighed. The Second Child had been coming in daily to see if NERV had figured out a way to repeat what had happened to Misato, and given the age of the man that Asuka obviously wanted, it wasn't hard to figure out why.

"No, Asuka," Ritsuko grumbled, "and I wouldn't expect there to be any time soon, if I were you. The Commander recently cut funding for this project rather dramatically."

"What? Why?" Asuka demanded, shocked.

Ritsuko shrugged. "The money was needed elsewhere, I suppose."

The scientist never did notice it when Asuka pilfered the disks that held the backups for all the data the project had gathered.

If NERV wasn't going to unlock the secret of restoring a person's youth, Asuka would, she decided.

* * *

"Asuka, are you all right?" Kaji asked a rather frantic Second Child led him to the EVA cages several days later. "You look exhausted."

"I'm fine, Kaji," Asuka said with a slightly crazed sounding giggle.

"So what did you ask me to come here for?" Kaji asked.

"This," Asuka replied.

The Second Child gave Kaji a hard shove, sending him tumbling into a waiting entry plug. Before the spy could recover from the shock, the hatch slammed closed. Cackling, Asuka rushed over to a nearby control panel, using it to make a robotic arm grab the plug and insert it into Unit Two. The red EVA's eyes lit up briefly, and Asuka removed the plug, placing it into Unit One, which also activated for a moment. Finally, Asuka returned the plug to its original position and allowed Kaji to climb out.

"What was _that_ about?!" the spy demanded, clearly shaken by the experience.

"Nothing," Asuka said, all too innocently. "Well, I'll see you at school tomorrow, Kaji-kun!"

Kaji blinked. "School?"

* * *

Asuka skipped happily to school the next morning, barely able to contain her excitement. She hoped that NERV had already gotten Kaji registered for school. She reached the schoolyard and looked around, searching for a miniature version of the man of her dreams.

"Asuka-chan!"

The Second Child turned to the source of the call and scowled, recognizing a hopeless fan boy when she saw one. And this one was _really_ hopeless.

"Beat it, baka, I'm looking for someone," Asuka told the poor slob.

"Asuka-chan, don't you recognize me?" the boy asked.

Feeling a slowly dawning sense of horror, Asuka turned to the boy and took a closer look at him. The guy was even skinnier than Shinji, and had bad acne. He had a bad overbite that would probably take years of braces to fix, and his black hair was extremely oily. The guy's appearance just screamed nerd.

However, she couldn't help but notice that his greasy hair was pulled back into a ponytail, or that the teenage boy had one or two untrimmed whiskers on his chin…

"Kaji?" Asuka asked quitely, silently praying he denied it.

"Yes, it's me, Asuka-chan," the boy confirmed.

"_This_ is what you looked like at fourteen?" she asked, unable to believe it.

_Mein Gott! I've turned a paragon of manliness into…this!_

"Uh-huh," Kaji confirmed. "So, wanna go out on a date this weekend, Asuka-chan?"

Asuka ran off screaming. "What have I done? _What have I done?!_"

"Kaji" laughed as the real Special Inspector to NERV emerged from his hiding place, still very much the age he'd been the previous day.

"Good job, kid," the real Kaji said, handing the boy a 5,000 yen bill. "That'll teach Asuka to try and forcibly turn me into a teenager."

The boy frowned as he looked at his pay. "Hey, you promised me 7,000 for this."

"Well if you'd remembered to take a pull off of that fake inhaler I got you, you would have gotten 7,000," Kaji replied.

* * *

Experiment Gone Awry (take two)

"Asuka, are you all right?" Kaji asked a rather frantic Second Child led him to the EVA cages several days later. "You look exhausted."

"I'm fine, Kaji," Asuka said with a slightly crazed sounding giggle.

"So what did you ask me to come here for?" Kaji asked.

"This," Asuka replied.

The Second Child gave Kaji a hard shove, sending him tumbling into a waiting entry plug. Before the spy could recover from the shock, the hatch slammed closed. Cackling, Asuka rushed over to a nearby control panel, using it to make a robotic arm grab the plug and insert it into Unit Two. The red EVA's eyes lit up briefly, and Asuka removed the plug, placing it into Unit One, which also activated for a moment. Finally, Asuka returned the plug to its original position and allowed Kaji to climb out.

"What was _that_ about?!" the spy demanded, clearly shaken by the experience.

"Nothing," Asuka said, all too innocently. "Well, I'll see you at school tomorrow, Kaji-kun!"

Kaji blinked. "School?"

* * *

Asuka skipped happily to school the next morning, barely able to contain her excitement. She hoped that NERV had already gotten Kaji registered for school. She reached the schoolyard and looked around, searching for a miniature version of the man of her dreams.

"Asuka."

She turned and saw Shinji approaching her, the Third Child looking unusually irritated.

"What is it baka?" Asuka demanded, impatient to resume her search for Kaji.

Shinji pointed off into the schoolyard. "You wouldn't happen to be responsible for that, would you, Asuka?"

Asuka looked to where Shinji was pointing, and her jaw dropped when she spotted a young Kaji in the schoolyard, talking with Misao. The Fourth Child was trying to act annoyed at Kaji's attentions, but Asuka could read body language well enough to see that the purple haired girl was enjoying it.

The Second Child cursed in German. "I forgot about Misao…" she groaned.

Shinji crossed his arms and scowled at her. "Good going, Asuka, you screwed us _both_ over."

Asuka sighed. "Well…let's go make out."

"Nani?!"

"Like you said, I ruined us both," Asuka grumbled. "We might as well get together now."

Shinji frowned, not quite able to follow her logic. Nevertheless, he shrugged and said, "Okay, but I'm inviting Rei to join us."

"Fine, but only because I owe you for accidentally screwing you over," Asuka grumbled.

"Sugoi!" Shinji exclaimed.


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

Chapter Nine: **Darkness/Danger Changes Everything**

Though several of the members of NERV Technical Division One wouldn't have believed it if told, Dr. Ritsuko Akagi was _not_ some kind of robot that plugged itself into a wall socket every night to recharge. No, the Project-E Chairperson was, it turned out, a perfectly normal person who ate, slept, and had to worry about doing laundry like any other human being.

Anyone who doubted that last point would have quickly become a believer if they saw Ritsuko at the moment. The bottle blond scientist was standing around in a dry cleaners near the train station, waiting for her clothing to be finished.

"The cost of having my laundry done is killing me," Ritsuko commented.

"Tell me about it," Makoto agreed dolefully. "I used to save money by doing my laundry myself. Now I just don't have the time anymore. Almost makes me wish Unit One had turned _me_ into a kid again."

Ritsuko chuckled as one of the machines opened up, revealing her now pristine clothing. "Well, Misato has had a much smaller workload since the incident," she said, taking the clothes.

"Could be worse," Aoba commented, returning from a brief trip to a vending machine. "At least we still sleep in our own homes."

"Yeah, and at least Captain Ibuki doesn't order me to do her laundry for her, like Captain Katsuragi did," Makoto added.

Ritsuko laughed. "Misato made you do her laundry for her?"

"Yeah," the man sighed. "She must've been having a bad day when she came up with the idea. When I asked if she could really order me to do that, she threatened to dock my pay if I didn't."

Ritsuko laughed again and made a mental note to tease Misato about this the next time she hung out with her. Though, the way things had been going lately, she wasn't sure when that would be. The two had been spending less and less time together of late. The few occasions when Ritsuko went over to Misao and Shinji's apartment for dinner were practically the only times the blonde saw her friend outside of work.

And the number of teasing remarks she had to endure from Misato about being a "deadbeat guardian" were starting to grate on Ritsuko and diminish her desire to go there again, despite the fact Casa Katsuragi was the only place in the city where she could get a home cooked meal.

Ritsuko supposed that Misato might be self-identifying as a fourteen-year-old more and more, which could be part of the reason they were growing distant. Though, it seemed like it was really just that Misato couldn't legally drink anymore that was keeping them from socializing much outside of work these days. They couldn't go to bars in the city anymore, and Misato had little desire to go to the Pulse together and watch Ritsuko sip cocktails while she was stuck with something non-alcoholic.

It actually made her feel somewhat sad. Not just that she and her best friend seemed to be growing apart, but that it was starting to look like the foundation of their years old friendship was bar hopping. Had their relationship always been so shallow?

"Hey, Dr. Akagi, do you know where Sakura is?" Aoba asked, pulling Ritsuko from her thoughts. "I thought she'd be coming on the train with us. She's working the same shift as we are, right?"

Ritsuko nodded. "She's supposed to be. Sakura's quite bright, but she's no Maya. And she's not exactly the most punctual subordinate I've ever had," she added, grumbling.

Further conversation was cut off as they reached the train station and boarded the train that would take them down to the Geofront.

* * *

"Morgen, Third," Asuka greeted with a yawn as she made her way into the kitchen. She glanced at the cheerfully sizzling contents of the frying pan on the stove and smiled in approval. "That doesn't look half bad, Third. I hope you managed to get the hang of it this time."

"I did the best I could," Shinji said dryly as he began plating up the bacon and scrambled eggs.

Asuka set the table while Shinji was laying out the food, and soon the two were seated and eating the Western style breakfast of eggs and sausage.

"Well?" Shinji asked after the redhead had consumed a few bites.

"You're improving. Slowly, but you're improving," Asuka replied with a smirk.

Shinji just rolled his eyes, by now used to Asuka's backwards compliments. It would probably be a cold day in hell before Asuka bestowed unblemished praise upon anyone besides Ryoji Kaji, he had realized.

Not that Shinji minded it. As a rule, the Third Child was difficult to offend, and backwards compliments from Asuka were like regular compliments from regular people, or so it seemed to him.

A few minutes later, Misao emerged and plopped down at the table. "Ohayo," she said as she helped herself to some of the food.

Shinji and Asuka returned the greeting. A rather uncomfortable silence followed, in sharp contrast to the friendly conversation that Shinji and Misao had once exchanged each morning.

Asuka resisted the urge to roll her eyes. This had been going on ever since the last Angel battle, and she had no idea what had caused it. All she knew for sure was that Shinji and Misao definitely weren't on good terms. The two, once seemingly joined at the hip, barely spent any time together unless they had to, and Misao hadn't teased Shinji once in a long while. And though Shinji continued to make bento boxes for Misao, he had ceased sitting at the "pilot's table" during lunch, opting instead to spend the period with Toji and Kensuke.

Both Shinji and Misao had firmly rebuffed her when she'd asked what was going on between them, and without knowing that, Asuka knew she had no hope of fixing the situation. Shinji had actually shown uncharacteristic nerve when she'd asked him, flatly telling her it was none of her business.

Thus, Asuka was left little choice but to tolerate her two housemates more or less giving each other the silent treatment while she waited for them to kiss and make up.

_Hmm, now that Misao isn't spending all her spare time hanging out with Shinji and his idiot friends, maybe I can get her to come shopping with me and Hikari sometime. That could be fun,_ Asuka mused. _Nah, mixing Hikari and Misao would be like mixing matter and antimatter. Just less explosive and more embarrassing._

* * *

"Abort the test! Break the circuits!" Ritsuko shouted as klaxons blared all around her.

"Cutting circuits," Makoto said, and the lights in the room winked out as he did so.

_And I told the Vice Commander I'd have good news for him after the prolonged activation test,_ Ritsuko sighed.

The power came back on, and Ritsuko looked over Makoto's shoulder as the status tags for the EVA nerve junctures came up on his screen. "Looks like that one's our problem," she said, noting the red tag. "Again."

"Uh, yeah," Makoto said. "Conversion rate's lower than calculated."

Ritsuko closed her eyes for a moment. _Can nothing go right today? And where the hell is Sakura?!_

* * *

In an apartment several kilometers above and to the east of NERV Headquarters, Sakura Kaiten stirred. She glanced over at her digital clock, only to find that the face was dark.

"Damn," she yawned. "Batteries must've died again. I really need to replace that clock. It sucks way too much power."

Sakura reached around until she finally found her wristwatch, lying on the floor near her futon. She held the thing up to her face and blinked away sleep until she could finally read the little timepiece.

"Damn!" she shouted, sitting bolt upright as panic surged through her. "Dr. Akagi's going to kill me!"

* * *

"Hey! Hold the elevator!" Kaji shouted, rushing for the remaining car.

Not quite able to keep herself from wincing, Maya stabbed the door close button, silently praying that she'd be gone by the time Kaji managed to reach her.

Her prayers went unanswered, unfortunately, as Kaji just barely managed to get his hand between the doors before he was shut out. _Damn it,_ Maya thought.

"Whew, it's been a while since I ran that hard," Kaji commented, panting, as he stepped into the car.

_What, skirt chasing hasn't kept you in top physical shape?_ Maya thought sourly.

"So, what's with the dark look this morning, brown eyes?" Kaji asked, smirking cheerfully at her.

"Don't call me brown eyes," Maya ordered flatly.

"Ooo, I love an authoritative woman," Kaji said with a sloppy grin.

Maya closed her eyes. _Just a minute or two in here, and then I can get away from him,_ she thought as she pressed the button for her floor with all her might.

* * *

"Are you really serious, Misato?" Ritsuko asked.

"I've told you to call me Misao, and yes, I'm serious, you deadbeat excuse for a guardian," Misao replied, moving the phone from one side of her head to the other. "The parent-teacher meetings are coming up at school, and since you are supposedly our guardian, you have to go."

Ritsuko sighed. "Misat…Misao, I'm very busy right now. We'll… talk…abo…later…"

The call ended with a burst of static. "Huh," Misao said, hanging up. "That's weird. Must be a problem with the signal tower or something."

She shrugged and continued on her way.

* * *

The elevator suddenly stopped. Maya restrained a groan, seriously wondering if some kind of higher power was messing with her for its sick amusement.

_Maybe the Angels really _are_ angels, and God's angry at me for helping to kill them,_ Maya mused darkly for a moment.

"Looks like the power's out," Kaji commented with a grin.

"It should be impossible," Maya said.

Still, she was only half surprised when the white light from the fluorescent bulbs were replaced with the harsh orange glow of the battery powered emergency lights.

"Maybe Doctor Akagi made a mistake?" Kaji suggested jovially.

Maya's eyes narrowed. "Don't make fun of sempai."

* * *

Back above the Geofront, the Children were walking from school to NERV headquarters together for scheduled tests and training. However, the fact that they were together was strictly the result of their trip having both the same starting point and destination, as at the moment the stony silence made it obvious that they weren't being very friendly to each other. Or at least, the Third and Fourth Children weren't.

_Damn Shinji. The kid's too soft-hearted to ever really comprehend the nature of war,_ Misao thought. _Another reason why I should be Unit One's primary pilot instead of him. And how dare he accuse me about not caring about him and Asuka and Rei. Just because the survival of the human species is my first priority, he goes and accuses me of seeing them as nothing but tools!_

Shinji's thoughts were just as dark. _I still can't believe Misao would want to endanger one of us so foolishly. And for what? A sample of an Angel? The remains of the Fourth and the Fifth weren't enough for NERV? The damn things were bigger than some skyscrapers! And I still can't believe she had the audacity to accuse me of being immature! Please, if she wants immature, she should look in a damn mirror!_

The two brooding teenagers barely noticed when they reached the Geofront access point. Rei slid her ID card through the scanner, but nothing happened. Not even a rejection message on the little monitor.

"Here, let me!" Asuka exclaimed, shoving the pale skinned girl out of the way.

The German vigorously swiped her card through the reader several times, but got no more of a response from the machine than Rei had. She growled in frustration. "The stupid thing must be broken!"

* * *

"The backup systems didn't all fail on their own," Gendo stated, leaning his face on his hands. "Someone must have done this intentionally."

"Well, it would be a disaster if an Angel were to attack right now," Fuyutski said as he lit candles to illuminate Gendo's office.

Unbeknownst to them, in the JSDF Command Center in Tokyo-2, a very large dot appeared on their map of Japan.

Meanwhile, Ritsuko slowly made her way to the command center with Makoto following behind her, forcing a bunch of hapless junior techs to pry open the doors for them.

And in an elevator that was caught between floors, Maya wondered how you could avoid someone when trapped in a tiny room with him.

* * *

"I can't contact anybody from my phone," Misao said, closing her cell phone with a sigh.

"This one's dead, too," Shinji said, hanging up a payphone.

"I am also unable to contact anyone in headquarters," Rei said, placing her NERV issued cell phone back in the pocket of her school uniform.

"None of the doors are working, either," Asuka huffed in annoyance, having gone up and down the hallway, trying to open the electronically controlled doors.

"Something's very wrong," Misao said, concern written all over her face. "Something must have happened in the Geofront."

"A natural assumption," Rei said. "Emergency procedures state that we should head for NERV headquarters."

"But first we have to decide who's going to be this group's leader," Asuka said, wagging a finger. "And naturally I have the best qualifications, so I'll be leader. Any objections?"

"Asuka, I have command training," Misao said flatly. "I'd be your CO if I didn't look about fifteen years younger than I actually am. I'll lead."

"Right now you're just a pilot like the rest of us," Asuka protested. "Well, except that you're backup. So let's settle this democratically. All those in favor of me leading this group to NERV?"

The redhead's hand of course shot up immediately, which was no surprise to anyone. Then, to Misao's horror, Shinji raised his hand along with Asuka. The former Ops Director gave Shinji a dark look. Shinji returned it with such intensity that Misao was suddenly quite sure that yes, he really was the Commander's son.

Asuka let out a loud bark of laughter. "Ha! You really do have your moments, Third!" she exclaimed. "All right, now all those in favor of Misao leading?"

Misao quickly raised her hand and looked imploringly at Rei, hoping that the First Child would cause a deadlock. She was not terribly surprised when Rei just continued to passively watch the scene unfolding before her, though.

"Well, that's two votes for me, one for you, and one abstention. Looks like I'm in charge, so let's go!" Asuka said triumphantly, turning on her heel.

"Headquarters is located in the other direction," Rei pointed out softly. "We can take access route seven to the Geofront."

"I knew that!" Asuka lied, doing a quick 180 degree turn and tromping off.

Misao got close to Shinji and whispered, "Wishing you'd voted for me instead, Shinji?"

"No," his flat reply killed her smug grin instantly. "Asuka may not have the best sense of direction, but I doubt she'll order any of us to do anything suicidal."

Misao scowled darkly at Shinji, her face quickly going red with anger. Shinji just turned and started to follow Asuka and Rei. After standing in place and fuming for a moment, Misao did as well.

"I thought the doors weren't working," Shinji said as they approached the one that led to route seven.

"The access route doors can be opened manually," Rei explained, gesturing toward the large crank that was next to the door.

"Well, this is your department, Shinji!" Asuka proclaimed, placing her hands on her hips. "So hop to it!"

"Huh? Me?" he stammered.

"Yes, you!" Asuka exclaimed. "Be a man and open the door for us, dummkopf!"

Misao smirked, hoping that the Second Child made Shinji regret his vote very much by the time they reached headquarters.

Shinji sighed and went to the task, straining to turn the crank. "Well, I guess there had to be _some_ downside to being the only male member in a group that's otherwise made up entirely of beautiful women," he joked weakly.

Asuka muttered something about him being a pervert but smiled slightly. Rei turned a delicate pink. Misao just scowled.

* * *

"Damn it, damn it, damn it!" Sakura cursed as she walked along the train tracks. "My ass is so fired! And here I thought this promotion was a chance to really move up the ladder!

"Who up there has something against me?" she continued venting to no one in particular. "I mean, first my alarm clock dies. Then, I'm in such a hurry that I get on the wrong train. _Then_ when I get on the right train, it stops because of a power outage! Ugh, could this day get any worse?"

Suddenly, a JSDF plane flew overhead, broadcasting a message. "This is the Third District JSDF. An unidentified object has been detected moving toward this area. All residents are ordered to evacuate to the designated shelters."

_Note to self: never, EVER ask that question again,_ Sakura thought.

"Damn it! If headquarters doesn't have power, either, then that means they probably don't know about the Angel!" she exclaimed, realization dawning. "I gotta report this! The lives of everyone in Tokyo-3 depend on it! And I might get to keep my job if I do! But how?"

Suddenly, a van covered with loudspeakers and fliers that was campaigning for one of the people running for the city council drove by. "Hey! Vote for Takahashi! He's the candidate who always stays calm! Even in situations like this!"

"Finally! Some good luck!" Sakura cackled as she broke out into a run, heading toward the van. "No pink slip for me, baby! Not today!"

* * *

"We're lost," Shinji said flatly, feeling a sudden rush of déjà vu as he recalled his first time in the Geofront with Misato.

"We are not lost!" Asuka snapped.

"We just don't know where we are right now," Misao agreed sarcastically.

"Shut up, Misao!" Asuka growled.

Shinji rolled his eyes, fairly confident their glorious leader couldn't see him do so in the dark corridor. "Look, Asuka, why don't you just devolve the duty of navigation to Rei?" he suggested diplomatically.

"I don't need to devolve—"

"Silence please," Rei spoke up softly

"What is it now?" Asuka demanded, sounding both annoyed and exasperated at the same time.

Shinji pricked his ears and soon heard someone speaking above them. "Attention all NERV personnel! An Angel is approaching Tokyo-3! Attention all NERV personnel! An Angel is approaching Tokyo-3!"

"That's Sakura!" Misao exclaimed. "Hey, Sakura! Sakura!"

All four pilots called out to the bridge technician, but their efforts were in vain, as the sound of her voice soon grew faint and then disappeared all together.

"Asuka, we can't wander around, not when there's an Angel up there," Misao said firmly. "We need to get to headquarters ASAP."

"Fine," Asuka grumbled. "Rei, I'm making you group navigator from here on out."

Rei nodded. "I know a shortcut."

"Wonderful!" Misao said.

The Fourth Child was slightly less enthusiastic when Rei pulled the grate off of one of the air shafts. "You're kidding, right?" Misao asked with a small drop of sweat running down the back of her head.

"No, Misao," Rei answered.

Asuka sighed. "Let's go," she said, kneeling down in preparation of crawling into the small shaft.

"Hang on, Asuka," Misao said. "I think Shinji should go first."

"Why?" Asuka demanded. "Just because I made Ayanami the navigator doesn't mean I'm not the group leader anymore!"

"We're wearing dresses, Asuka," Misao answered. "And I don't know about you, but I don't want Shinji looking up my skirt while we're crawling through the ducts."

Asuka blinked, briefly shocked into silence by Misao actually expressing a desire to _prevent _Shinji from getting a look at her body. _Mein Gott, that must've been some fight they had,_ she thought.

The Second Child recovered quickly, and conceded that Misao actually had a good point. "All right, Shinji, you go first," she said.

Much of the remainder of the trip was silent, broken only by Rei giving the occasional direction. The First Child appeared to know the Geofront and its associated tunnels like the back of her hand, and she led them through the labyrinth of hallways and ventilation shafts without ever hesitating.

In the quiet darkness, with the knowledge that a huge and otherworldly monster was above them, preparing to strike, the Third and Fourth Children couldn't help but brood as they went.

_An Angel. I've barely even thought about them since Mount Asuma. I'm not sure I can keep fighting them when I'm fighting with Misao like this. She's been my strength,_ he thought. _I'm such an _idiot_. I finally find someone who cares about me, who says I'm her best friend, and I go and blow up at her. She's the officer. I have no business telling her what to do when it comes to commanding battles. And I never should have said that she doesn't care about us and uses us as weapons. That's my Father, not Misao._

Misao, meanwhile, was feeling her gut twist with anxiety. She always felt it before a battle, but now it was particularly bad. If Shinji died with the two of them fighting, she knew she'd never forgive herself.

She also began to grudgingly admit to herself that her hatred of the Angels had seriously clouded her judgment at Mount Asuma. It _had_ been reckless, not just to keep sending Asuka in deeper, but to confront the Angel in its own—extremely hostile—territory. Yet she'd been all for doing both things, had applauded Commander Ikari's decision to declare an A-17 pre-emptive attack, in fact.

_I didn't have any business arguing with Maya in the middle of a battle, either. _Misao thought. _Any other officer would have done a lot more than tell me not to do it again after I pulled that stunt._

She shouldn't have said that Shinji wasn't growing up, either, she decided. It had just been a stupid attempt to flaunt whatever remained of her 'adulthood.' He'd grown up enormously since she'd picked him up on the day the Third Angel had arrived. Not wanting to see the lives of his comrades thrown away was no sign of immaturity.

The Third and Fourth's emotional turnarounds were rudely interrupted when the bottom of the air shaft collapsed out from under them and they landed in a heap in the middle of the command center, along with Asuka. Rei, the only one to avoid this fate, jumped down and landed lightly on her feet a moment later.

"So that's where you've been!" Ritsuko said, walking over to them.

"Ugh," Shinji groaned, getting to his feet. "The EVA's?"

"Already on standby," Ritsuko said, hooking a thumb toward the still sleeping giants.

"But how?" Shinji asked, confused. "There's no power…"

"It was all done manually," Ritsuko explained. "The Commander did it."

Shinji took a closer look through the darkness and was shocked not only to see that a group of men were opening the hatches of the entry plugs with old fashioned ropes and pulleys, but that his Father was among them.

"My Father?" Shinji said, startled.

Shinji actually hadn't devoted nearly as much time pondering his relationship with his Father over the past few months as he'd expected to at the start of this whole insane experience. The emotional rollercoaster caused by what had happened to Misao had kept his mind occupied and mostly off of the subject of Gendo Ikari.

This display, however, made him wonder if there might be more to the man who had abandoned him ten years ago and blackmailed him into piloting EVA for the first time.

"Commander Ikari believed in you and prepared everything," Ritsuko said. "You three should go change and get ready for sortie."

"Right," Shinji nodded.

He, Asuka, and Rei began to head for the locker rooms, two of the three feeling absurdly grateful that they were right next to the command center and they wouldn't have to change in the hallway.

"Shinji-kun?" Misao called softly.

He stopped and turned, noting the return of the honorific. "Yes, Misao?"

Misao paused for a moment. "Good luck, Shinji-kun," she said. "Come back safe."

She'd wanted to apologize to him for being an idiot earlier, she really had. But she just couldn't, not surrounded by so many people.

He smiled. "Arigato, Misao. I will."

_You'd better,_ Misao thought anxiously as she watched the Children depart.

* * *

The entry plugs were inserted into their proper places in the Evangelion Units using a diesel engine that most of NERV had never believed they'd ever have to utilize. To Shinji, the slow descent into the cavity in EVA's neck invoked an even greater feeling of vertigo and nausea than the much quicker insertion of the plug that was the norm.

Or perhaps that was caused by the fact that he was going into battle feeling more confused and at loose ends than he had since the conflict against the Fourth Angel. Despite the sudden cracks that had appeared in the shared animosity between himself and Misao, it still didn't feel quite…right, to fight for her under the current conditions. Not that he wouldn't have liked to, but his usual wellspring of motivation and purpose had momentarily run dry.

_Father went to all the trouble of manually preparing the EVA's because he believed in us,_ Shinji thought. _I can't let him down._

To Shinji's dismay, this did depressingly little to strengthen his resolve. He sighed.

_I told Misao I'd come back. I can't break my word,_ Shinji thought.

This _did_ give him the strength to calm himself enough to fight the coming battle. Shinji smiled. Even when they weren't getting along, Misao was still helping him.

The entry plug finally finished sliding into place with a deep thump that Shinji felt more than heard. The sound of the armor on the EVA's back sliding into place and covering the plug then filled his ears, and the walls of his plug suddenly came to life in a whirl of colors as Unit One activated.

"Sever the primary hydraulic lines!" he heard Gendo yell.

Various technicians quickly began cutting hoses, and Shinji could feel the restraints on his EVA slowly begin to loosen. His gaze flicked toward his father while he waited until he was able to get Unit One moving. Shinji couldn't help but think that Gendo Ikari looked incredibly tiny when he looked at the man from inside his EVA.

Shinji was finally able to get Unit One's arms free and was able to push the restraints open the rest of the way with a grunt of effort. He turned and saw that Asuka and Rei had likewise managed to free their Evangelions.

"Let's go," Asuka said, taking charge.

With the lifts rendered useless by the power outage, the trio of Evangelions had to crawl into a massive tunnel, which according to the bridge personnel, led to a huge shaft that would go all the way to the surface.

Shinji felt grateful that all three EVA's were currently equipped with F-type battery packs; there was no way they could make such a trek and kill the Angel in under five minutes.

"Oh, we must look so stupid!" Asuka complained. "This is pathetic!"

"Asuka, it's not like anybody's watching us," Shinji pointed out in a dry tone. "Besides, even if someone could see us, we're in seventy meter tall robots. Nobody's going to make fun of us no matter _how_ stupid we look."

Asuka snickered despite herself. "Okay, I guess you have a point there, Third Child."

The three EVA's finally reached an armored panel, and Asuka wasted no time showing it the business end of Unit Two's foot. The panel was soon sent tumbling to the bottom of the shaft, and the Evangelions' path was clear. The great war machines quickly leapt into the shaft, bracing their hands and feet against the walls to keep from joining the mangled panel.

Each of them fervently but silently hoping that their batteries would hold out until they got out of the shaft, the three pilots urged their EVA's upwards, and they began to make slow but steady progress upwards.

Unfortunately, none of them realized that the Angel was directly above them, or that it was "weeping" a deadly substance down upon them from the single, huge eye located on its underbelly.

Some of it splashed onto one of the battery packs on Unit Zero's shoulder pylons. Warning messages alerting her to the failure of that battery popped upon on Rei's HUD, and the First Child quickly turned to look at the smoking crater in the fuel cell.

"Look out!" Rei warned her fellow pilots. "It's acid!"

The other two Children immediately looked upwards in surprise and not a little fear, just in time to see a shower of deadly brown liquid falling toward them. Had they been in just about any other position, they could have dodged the unorthodox assault, or at the very least made a good try at it. In their current situation, however…

"Ahhh!" Asuka howled in pain as the bulk of the acid splashed onto Unit Two, and the intense pain her EVA experienced was transferred to her through the A-10 connectors she wore.

The crimson titan lost its grip on the sides of the shaft and went tumbling, soon colliding with Unit Zero, which _also_ lost its hold on the walls. The two giants crashed down onto Unit One, but somehow Shinji managed to prevent going into a freefall like the other two had. However, he didn't succeed in stopping them, either, as the purple EVA's hands and feet went sliding against the walls, allowing all three war machines to descend almost as quickly as they would have if they _were_ in freefall.

Shinji cried out in fear as the wall of the shaft began to whoosh past his vision in a blur. He knew all too well that if they reached the bottom, there was no chance of them being able to climb to the top of the shaft before they ran out of power, even if the Angel didn't try and attack them again.

If he didn't stop their descent, the Angel would win, and they would all die.

Suddenly, a lance of red hot anger shot through the mindless fear that was consuming him. _I told Misao I'd be back, and I am _not_ going to let a little acid rain make a liar out of me!_

With a grunt of effort, Shinji forced Unit One to press its hands and feet into the walls of the shaft as hard as it possibly could. He could feel his own muscles begin to ache in protest in mere seconds, and he winced as he felt his palms and the soles of his feet burning in symphony with the sparks being generated by the friction caused by his renewed efforts.

Finally, after several torturous moments that had elongated into near eternities, the three EVA Units stopped moving. Shinji let out a sigh of relief, accompanied by his fellow pilots.

"We should vacate this shaft until we have formed a plan of attack," Rei spoke up after a moment. "We are vulnerable here."

"Good point," Asuka agreed.

Fortunately, another access panel was nearby. Unit Two tore it off and then climbed into the tunnel it revealed, then helped its comrades inside, and not a moment too soon. Mere seconds after Unit One made it inside, a fresh shower of acid passed down the shaft.

"Both my auxiliary batteries were damaged," Rei observed calmly.

Since the battery packs could now only serve to impede her EVA's movements with their weight, Rei pulled them off Unit Zero's shoulder pylons and tossed them down the shaft. They soon landed, joining two mangled metal plates and, Shinji just realized, three pallet rifles.

_Damn, we must have dropped them when we were falling,_ the Third Child thought, realizing that their task had just gotten that much harder.

"My batteries are busted, too," Asuka grumbled, throwing hers away as well.

Shinji summonsed a screen on his HUD with a thought, and grimaced at what he saw. "Mine are drained," he said, discarding Unit One's battery packs.

What followed was a very pregnant paused as the three of them watched still more acid rain down the shaft.

"So…" Shinji began.

"Yes?" Asuka asked.

"I have no idea how we're supposed to kill this thing," he confessed sheepishly. "Do either of you have an idea?"

"Mein Gott, you're hopeless sometimes, Third Child," Asuka grumbled.

"I cannot think of an appropriate tactic," Rei said.

"Asuka?" Shinji asked.

The Second Child didn't respond, and Shinji was about to call her name again, this time more forcefully. However, he halted just as he was opening his mouth as he glanced at the image of Asuka in the "FROM EVA-02" box on his HUD.

The pilot of Unit Two looked thoughtful.

"Okay, here's what we're going to do," Asuka announced abruptly. "There will be three positions: offense, defense, and backup. Defense will head up the shaft, neutralize the Angel's AT field, and protect the offense from the acid. Backup will head down the shaft, retrieve the rifle, and throw it up to the offense, who will then destroy the Angel."

"I will take the defensive position," Rei said.

"Sorry, First Child, but that's _my_ job," Asuka said. "You'll be backup, and Shinji will take offense."

"But it's too dangerous!" Shinji protested, knowing perfectly well what 'protecting' the offense would entail.

"I have to do this, Shinji," Asuka said, steel in her voice. She grinned. "After all, I need to pay you back for what happened in the last battle."

Shinji considered arguing with her, but one glance at the countdown timer on Unit One's internal power supply, which seemed to be moving faster than usual, silenced him. He nodded.

"All right," Asuka said, waiting until a fresh shower of acid passed. "EVA charge!"

Unit Two left back into the shaft, heading upwards as quickly as Asuka could make it move. When the red behemoth was high enough, Asuka planted Unit Two's hands and feet firmly against the walls and covered as much area with her EVA's body as she could. She braced herself for the agony she knew was inevitable.

Unit Zero leapt down the shaft, allowing gravity to claim it. Mere seconds before the blue giant slammed into the ground, retrorockets in the back of its legs opened up and slowed its descent. It still landed hard, but the EVA's legs didn't snap from the fall.

Unit One jumped out into the shaft, fully extending its legs and pressing its feet and back into the wall, propping itself up while leaving its arms free.

Acid spilled down from the Angel's huge eye, splashing down onto Unit Two's back.

Asuka groaned in pain, tears of agony forming in the corners of her eyes as she experienced the pain of having her back burned away by chemical fire. Her display flickered as the intense pain she was experiencing began to disrupt the neural link between her and her EVA.

But despite whatever flaws she might have, the Second Child's will to win was like iron. Even her worst foe would never attempt to claim otherwise. Her grip on the walls never wavered.

"Ikari!" Rei yelled as she threw up a pallet rifle.

Shinji, to his mild surprise, caught the weapon without fumbling over it at all. "Asuka!" he shouted, even as he took up upwards. "Get out of the way!"

Relieved beyond measure but, as always, too proud to show it, Asuka just moved Unit Two to the side. "I'm clear!"

Shinji wasted no time pulling the trigger, sending an almost solid stream of deadly shells originally designed to fire from the main gun of modern tanks rocketing upwards. The massive rounds easily punched through the Angel's hide and then flew out the other end.

A moment later, the pallet rifle clicked empty, but that was all right. Above them, the Angel's four longs legs gave out, and its spider-like form collapsed onto the street.

The Children had endured again.

* * *

"Oh, come on, brown eyes, what _else_ is there to do in here?" Kaji said, his tone of voice _very_ suggestive.

Maya had tried to be patient, she truly had. But after hours of putting up with Kaji's incessant and unwelcome advances, something inside her finally snapped. She spun to glare at him with a look that could kill. Thanks to the dim light, Kaji didn't immediately notice the nearly murderous glint in her eyes.

"Kaji-san," Maya said in a dangerously quiet voice. "Let me tell you something about myself."

"I'm all ears, sweetie," Kaji replied, grinning.

"I'm gay!" Maya barked.

Kaji retreated a step, his sloppy grin becoming noticeably brittle. "What?"

"I'm a lesbian, you freaking idiot!" Maya snarled. "The thought of sleeping with a man makes me feel vaguely nauseous, and the thought of sleeping with _you_ makes me throw up a little in my mouth! It's not something I like to advertise, but since you obviously won't take 'no' for an answer, I had no choice but to tell you."

"I…I see," Kaji stammered, wondering just why it seemed as though he'd left all his luck with the ladies back in Germany.

"You'd better," Maya growled. "If you persist in hitting on me despite knowing my orientation, I'll pull strings and have you transferred to NERV-Australia."

Kaji paled. Ever since Second Impact, the land down under had become a frozen hell. Nobody even knew why NERV had gone to the trouble and expense of opening a branch down there, as it was seemingly good for nothing besides serving as a place for the higher-ups in NERV to banish those who made the mistake of angering them.

"And if you spread the word that I'm a lesbian, I will have you shot," Maya continued. "Do I make myself clear, Inspector Kaji?"

Kaji flinched under the force of the petite woman's maniac glare. "As crystal, Captain Ibuki."

Suddenly, as though God himself had finally taken pity on Kaji, the power came back on and the elevator finished its trip to the next floor. The doors opened, revealing Ritsuko, Sakura, and Makoto.

"Hi, Rits. Bye, Rits," Kaji said quickly, pushing past the trio and practically sprinting away.

"What's up with him?" Ritsuko asked curiously as she watched her old friend retreat. "Have to use the bathroom or something?"

"I had to give him the _Over the Rainbow_ treatment," Maya answered nonchalantly. "Now, what in the world has been going on?"

* * *

After slaying the Angel, the three pilots had taken their EVA's outside where they could be more easily retrieved and were enjoying a bit of well deserved down time. The three Children lay next to one another on a grassy hill just outside the city.

"It's ironic," Shinji said. "Without artificial light, the sky can look so beautiful at night."

"But without the lights, it seems that there are no humans here," Asuka said. A moment later, the city's power was restored, Tokyo-3 lighting up one district after another. "There, I feel much more comfortable with it this way."

"Man fears the darkness, so he scrapes away at it with fire," Rei commented.

"That's pretty philosophic," Asuka commented.

"Hey, Asuka?" Shinji said.

"What?"

"You did great coming up with that plan back there," Shinji said. "We'd all be dead if we had to depend on my ability to think tactically."

Asuka grinned. "Well, as leader of this group, I have to do the planning, now don't I?"

Shinji smiled. "I guess so," he agreed. "You were very brave taking the defensive position."

"Yeah," Asuka agreed cheerfully. "I guess I was."

"But you didn't have to," Shinji continued. "I might regret saying this, but I never felt like you owed me anything for what happened at Mount Asuma. I mean, we're supposed to be a team, right? Saving each other every now and then is just all in a day's work. We don't have to keep score or anything."

Asuka gave him a surprised look, then smirked. "You're just saying that because you don't want to owe me when I have to save your ass in the future."

Shinji laughed. "Maybe, though I think all the 'Shinji desperately needs his ass saved' moments passed before you got here. At least, I hope they did."

"Hey, you never know," Asuka countered, sounding suspiciously hopeful.

Silence followed for several moments. Then Shinji and Asuka couldn't hold it in anymore, and their laughter rang out over the hillside.

Meanwhile, in the shadows several meters away, Misao stood, listening in on the pilots' conversation. She had intended to join them, but she had stopped to shamelessly eavesdrop when she'd heard them talking.

_I'm not really of part of their group,_ she thought sadly. _No more than I'm a part of the command staff anymore. I'm just a misfit who doesn't belong anywhere, created by some crazy disaster._

She could apologize to him later, Misao decided, quietly withdrawing. She didn't want to ruin this moment for the real pilots, especially since Shinji and Asuka finally seemed to be getting along. Shinji and Asuka…

Shinji deserved someone like Asuka, Misao thought. Someone beautiful and brilliant. Someone who didn't have a massive identity crisis that would cripple her ability to be with him. Someone who wasn't the once (and probably future) "Everclear Katsuragi."

It shocked her just how painful it was to admit all that to herself.

* * *

Author's Notes: And so ends another chapter of "Altered Destinies." Shinji and Misao have yet to officially reconcile, but they're definitely on their way to that. Of course, how much good them making nice will do with the way things are happening remains to be seen. Stay tuned.

I hope no one thinks that Shinji and Misao's emotional turn arounds were too abrupt. Knowing that death could be right around the corner can do that sort of thing to people.

Also, I hope those of with less than glowing opinions of Kaji enjoyed seeing him get the "_Over the Rainbow_ treatment." I probably wouldn't abuse the guy that much, normally, but like I said, I know that a lot of Shinji/Misato fans probably aren't too fond of him.

NefCanuck, yeah, I wasn't sure if Shinji's little explosion was entirely in character. It can be so hard to tell when you develop the characters differently from how it went in canon, but I needed him to set her off.

Orionpax09, I understand what you mean about rehashing the episodes. I try not to do it, but most of the "action" right now is the character development, not the war. That will change in future chapters, though. Also, Maya's plan was to pull everyone out of there and then use the N2 mines on the Angel. Assuming the Angel hatched at the same time it did even without Asuka caging it, this probably wouldn't have worked. However, NERV can't be sure that the Angel wouldn't have waited until later to hatch if they hadn't disturbed it.

As always, thanks to all my readers and reviewers.

* * *

Omakes

Orientation

Suddenly, as though God himself had finally taken pity on Kaji, the power came back on and the elevator finished its trip to the next floor. The doors opened, revealing Ritsuko and Gendo.

Ritsuko's eyes widened when she took in the sight of her old college friend and her former protégé laying on the floor, only partially dressed. Gendo showed no reaction.

"Oh, thank goodness you got us out!" Kaji exclaimed, looking haggard. "This woman is a succubus!"

Maya blushed slightly, grinned, and nervously rubbed the back of her neck. She did not deny it.

"Maya-chan!" Ritsuko shouted, appalled. "You swore it would just be the two of us forever!"

"Gomen, sempai," Maya said, looking down, "but Kaji-san just sort of wore down my resistance…"

"If I'd known what would happen, I never would have!" Kaji put in vehemently.

"And, well, one thing kind of just led to another," Maya finished lamely.

"But I thought what we had was real!" Ritsuko said, on the verge of tears.

Maya chuckled nervously. "Oh, and, um, this hard to say, but…I think I'm totally straight now."

_Damn I'm good!_ Kaji couldn't help but think, despite how worn he was.

"Nooooo!" Ritsuko wailed, breaking out into sobs.

"Interesting," Gendo commented. "Something similar once happened to me, but the result was…opposite."

Kaji arched an eyebrow, hardly believing that anyone would admit what he thought Ikari was admitting. "You slept with a woman, and she decided she was gay?"

"Correct," Gendo answered, nonplussed. "I cannot recall her name, however."

"That was _me_, you bastard!" Ritsuko screamed.

And with that, she drove her knee straight up into Gendo's crotch. The Commander of NERV screamed and collapsed to the floor, writhing in pain. Then the blond scientist sent a swift kick into Kaji's groin, evicting a silent scream from the spy. Finished dishing out revenge, Ritsuko turned and fled, trying to suppress her tears.

Maya looked down at the pathetically quivering form of Kaji, feeling quite certain that her sempai had permanently damaged him.

_Great, now he's good for nothing. I guess there's just one thing to do…_

"Ritsuko-chan! Come back!" Maya shouted, getting to her feet and starting to pursue the blonde. "I didn't mean it!"

* * *

Mutual Interests

Suddenly, as though God himself had finally taken pity on Kaji, the power came back on and the elevator finished its trip to the next floor. The doors opened, revealing Ritsuko.

"Hi, Rits. Bye, Rits," Kaji said quickly, pushing past the trio and practically sprinting away.

"What's up with him?" Ritsuko asked curiously as she watched her old friend retreat. "Have to use the bathroom or something?"

"No, I think I freaked him out a little bit," Maya confessed.

"Huh?"

Maya blushed. "Well, we were talking, and with Kaji being Kaji, he brought up the topic of sex. And I…" her blush deepened. "I admitted to him that I'd always wanted to do it while wearing cat ears, and maybe a tail."

"R-Really?" Ritsuko asked, her heart suddenly hammering.

"Yeah," Maya confessed. "I don't know _why_ I've always wanted to dress up as a cat girl, I just have. I never thought it was _that_ bad, but it seemed to have creeped Kaji-san out. Sempai, am I a hentai?"

"Of course not, Maya-chan," Ritsuko said reassuringly, throwing an arm over her petite companion's shoulders. "I would never want to be friends with a disgusting hentai, but I still want to be close to you. In fact, I think this could be the start of a beautiful relationship…"

Maya frowned in confusion. "The start? But sempai, we're already friends."

"Yes, _just_ friends," Ritsuko said, her tone of voice making to clear she wanted to fix that.

* * *

That was easy…

Shinji sighed and went to the task, straining to turn the crank. "I guess there had to be _some_ downside to being the only male member in a group that's otherwise made up entirely of beautiful women," he joked weakly.

Misao squealed in delight. "Shinji-kun, that was so sweet!" she exclaimed, hugging him tightly from behind. "I'm so sorry about what I said back at Mount Asuma! Have my babies!"

Shinji sweat dropped. "Uh, Misao…"

Before he could say anything further, another set of arms encircled his frame. "That was smoother than anything Kaji's ever said to anyone," Asuka cooed.

And before Shinji could react to _this_, a third set of arms embraced him. "Your words have filled me with an overwhelming desire to become one with you," Rei whispered.

Shinji blinked.

_I did not expect this to happen until much later in the scenario_, he thought while the three beautiful young women hugged him, all of them with clearly far more than creating a Kodak moment on their minds. _However, I will deem this acceptable…_


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

Chapter Ten: **Close/Faster**

The skies above Tokyo-3 were gray, and a steady, warm rain fell from the heavens. Some of the city's more macabre residents wondered if it were God weeping over the destruction of His messengers at the brutal hands of humanity. The rest just grabbed an umbrella, grumbling about the weather.

But most of the patrons enjoying lunch at the Pulse didn't even know it was raining outside, such were the wonders of the Geofront.

"I really shouldn't," Maya said, eyeing the cocktail before her warily. "I mean, I have to go back to work after this…"

"Oh, loosen up," Misao said. "It's not like you'll be falling down drunk after just one glass, and we need to celebrate your promotion somehow. And besides, it would be rude of you to turn down the drink I bought you from my limited funds."

Maya smirked. "I know how much you and the other pilots make," she said.

"Unfair, isn't it?" Misao replied without missing a beat. "Still, I'm surprised that you know. Shinji-kun didn't realize he was drawing any kind of salary at all for a while there."

Maya smiled and took a sip of her cocktail. "I suppose I'm well and truly stuck with this job now," she said, grinning ruefully.

"Looks like it, Major," Misao said with a grin. She soon sobered, however. "Maya, I didn't just ask you here to celebrate. I want to apologize to you, too."

Maya didn't reply, just looking at Misao expectantly. Misao grimaced slightly. Maya usually dismissed almost any offense as nothing; the petite brunette had never once so much as raised an eyebrow when Misao went about belting out orders to Maya's subordinates like their positions in NERV had never changed. That fact that she wasn't shrugging off what had happened now was a clear indicator that Maya realized just how unacceptable Misao's behavior at Mount Asuma had been.

"I'm sorry for undermining your authority during the operation to capture the volcano Angel," Misao said. "I let my emotions get the best of me. I promise, I won't let it happen again."

Maya leaned back in her chair and smiled. "Well, I guess it's not too surprising that you felt like you were still in command, considering how you do most of my tactical planning for me."

"The tactical planning was one of the main reasons I took that job. It's not like I felt as if I was taking some burden away from you, even though I realize it might have seemed like that to you," Misao commented. "So, you forgive me for acting like an idiot?"

Maya smiled. "Of course. It would be foolish of me to snub my best advisor, now wouldn't it?"

Misao grinned in response. Inwardly, however, she was dreading what she knew she had to do soon. Gathering up the courage to apologize to Maya had taken less effort than apologizing to Shinji would, of that she was sure. Maybe she could try and get him alone this evening.

"Oh," Maya said, "I just remembered. All of the pilots have sync tests this evening. Including you, since the extra Unit One test plug for you has finally been completed. Would you please let Shinji and Asuka know?"

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Misao nodded.

* * *

The test plug was dark and peaceful, though for reasons Shinji couldn't even guess at, it did not offer the unexplained sense of comfort that sitting inside the entry plug of EVA Unit One did.

It did, however, offer a much better place to think.

Things had been much better between himself and Misao since she had wished him luck before the battle against the last Angel. They hadn't been fighting, and he'd resumed sitting at the pilot's table at school during lunch.

Shinji wished he could just leave it like that. Unspoken agreements came much more easily to the socially awkward pilot than a good old fashioned palaver. However, he just couldn't.

He still felt guilty about their fight. Ever since he'd stopped being angry with her, the moment he'd accused her of viewing the other pilots as nothing more than something to use against the Angels had replayed over and over again in his head whenever his mind was idle. None of the other terrible memories Shinji possessed had ever tormented him so much, which was truly saying something. He still felt shame burn bright and painful within himself whenever he pondered just how malicious he'd felt at that moment, how his desire to hurt her had overridden every other impulse in his soul.

On top of that, things hadn't really gone back to normal between them. While they certainly weren't at each other's throats or giving one another the cold shoulder any more, there was a noticeable awkwardness between them, and Shinji absolutely hated it.

She also didn't tease him as much as she used to, and he missed it, to his considerable surprise.

There was no avoiding it. He was just going to have to apologize to her and hope she forgave him.

* * *

"Rei and Asuka have reached the edge of the contamination zone," Sakura reported from the test plug control room.

"Hmm, but it looks like Shinji and Misao can both take a little more," Ritsuko observed over her assistant's shoulder. "Lower Shinji's depth by another point three and Misao's by point one."

Sakura nodded and typed in the appropriate commands, causing Shinji and Misao's command chairs to slide slightly down in their test plugs. "They've reached the edge of the contamination zone," the tech reported.

"Incredible," Ritsuko said. "Shinji's overtaken Asuka."

"It's like that boy was born to pilot EVA," another technician commented.

"This is going to cause problems," Maya spoke up from behind them.

Ritsuko turned and gave her former protégé a confused look. "What in the world do you mean, Maya?"

Maya sighed. "Asuka's extremely competitive. She's not going to take the news that she's not number one anymore well. And Misao's been chomping at the bit to get into battle since she was designated the Fourth Child. I'm afraid she's going to explode if she doesn't see combat soon, but with Shinji's score so much higher than hers, I just don't have a good reason to put her in."

"This is why I prefer working with machines," Ritsuko commented.

Maya couldn't help but smile slightly. "Computers _are_ much easier to understand," she agreed.

The test completed, Sakura drained the LCL from the plugs and opened the hatches. A few minutes later, the four pilots reported to the control room to find out how they'd done.

"That was excellent work, Misato," Ritsuko said. "Your sync ratio has increased by seven points since the last test."

Asuka "hmphed" slightly. Misao was very low on her list of potential threats, especially considering her inability with every EVA besides Unit One, but she still didn't like it when others received praise for their skills with EVA.

Misao, for her part, looked up hopefully. She had almost given up all hope of ever managing to surpass Shinji, but if she was making that much progress…

"However, Shinji was this week's top achiever," Ritsuko said, shattering her friend's hopes.

"Me?" Shinji asked, surprised.

Ritsuko nodded. "Yes, your score has increased by ten points in the last ten days. This means that you now have the highest synchronization ratio of all the pilots."

"_What?!_" Asuka shrieked.

Shinji winced. While he cared about his performance as an EVA pilot, he had no particular desire to overtake Asuka in the rankings. All that really mattered to him was staying ahead of Misao, thus keeping her out of the entry plug.

"It's not that big a deal, Asuka," he said quickly. "I mean, sync ratios aren't everything. My sync ratio could've been 200 percent, and it wouldn't have helped me figure out how to beat that last Angel."

This mollified Asuka, but only slightly. "Well, I'm sure that in the heat of battle, you'll have difficulty keeping up those numbers," she said. "So cherish your victory while you can, jerkface!"

And with that she stomped off. Shinji sighed, _And things were going so well between us, too._

Misao shook her head, feeling her frustration mingling with pride for Shinji's accomplishments. It annoyed her that the boy had to make excuses for excelling, thanks to Asuka's hang ups. Still, she couldn't deny that a small part of her was practically gleeful to see Shinji and Asuka's relationship head south. She tried to ignore said small part of herself, but it was impossible to do so entirely.

"Well, come on," she said. "Let's get changed and head home."

* * *

Asuka was already venting to no one in particular by the time Misao and Rei reached the ladies locker room. "The idiot thinks he's so great just because he can sync so high with so little effort!" she exclaimed. "Damn Invincible Shinji!"

"Asuka, Shinji-kun worked his ass off to get up to speed before you got here," Misao said flatly. "And if there's anyone in the world who's less full of himself than Shinji Ikari, I've yet to meet him."

Her words made her recall when she'd accused Shinji of putting effort into piloting because he wanted glory. Misao now felt very foolish for saying such a thing—this was Shinji, after all—but it had seemed logical at the time. After all, there had been no other potential reasons for Shinji to put his heart into piloting that she'd been able to think of.

Misao frowned. _Why _did_ Shinji start really trying when it comes to EVA, if not for glory?_

"You would defend him!" Asuka growled, spinning around to glare at Misao and pulling the Fourth Child from her reverie.

"What?" Misao asked, suddenly feeling a rush of unexpected nervousness.

"Oh, don't give me that," Asuka said, crossing her arms. "I know that you like him. It's as plain as day around the apartment."

"Th-That's not true," Misao protested, cursing the stammer she couldn't keep out of her voice. She'd had no idea it was so obvious.

Asuka laughed humorlessly. "Yeah, right," she said. "You know what else? He likes you, too. If you _really_ want to pilot, you should be nasty to him again. That would probably send his sync ratio plummeting and let you finally see some action."

Misao was appalled by the maliciousness of her fellow pilot and housemate. Yet at the same time she was tempted to see if Asuka was correct. Had she always had the power to get herself into battle against the Angels? Did she really matter that much to Shinji that a few unkind words from her could send him into enough turmoil to erode his piloting skills? Ritsuko _had_ mentioned something about the increases to his sync ratio halting during the time that they'd been fighting…

_What the hell are you thinking?!_ She suddenly demanded of herself. Misao was willing to do a great many things to have her revenge against the Angels, but hurt Shinji? Never.

"You just want me to screw him up so you can have the top spot again," Misao spat. "Well, forget it! And if I ever catch you doing this kind of scheming again, I'll talk to Maya and ask her to put you in the backup position for every battle from now on!"

Asuka ground her teeth together, and she was very tempted to lash out at the Fourth Child, both verbally and physically.

But, for once, the Second Child restrained herself. Contrary to what some would believe, Asuka did have her limits, and even she was rather shocked at what she'd just tried to do. Ashamed, even.

Not that Asuka would ever admit as much to anyone, so the two Children finished their business in the locker room in stony silence.

* * *

_What am I going to do with these kids?_ Maya wondered as she looked over the Children's profiles in her office. All of them, even Misao's, had a number of red flags that Maya could easily spot, and she was far from an expert on human behavior. Under more normal circumstances, no soldier in their mental states would be given a high pressure task like piloting EVA.

Then again, under normal circumstances, no young teenager would ever be made a soldier at all.

The whole thing infuriated her. The pilots had all been through enough pain in their lives. Now not only did they have to bear the weight of the world on their young shoulders, but they had to do it with other people of such differing personalities that they were almost certain to fight.

_And I get the hopeless task of somehow making them work as a team,_ Maya thought. _Even when one of them works hard and acts like a professional, that just causes more problems._

Her brooding was interrupted by a knock at her door. Maya looked up just in time to see Ritsuko walk in. "Sempai!" she said, cheering up at once.

"Hello, Major Ibuki," Ritsuko replied with a grin, bowing respectfully.

Maya wrinkled her nose. "Ugh, please don't, sempai."

Ritsuko chuckled. "Gomen, Maya, I couldn't resist," she said. "I know you probably don't think that your promotion is something to celebrate, but you have been doing a good job. Even Commanders Ikari and Fuyutski must think so. They left together for Antarctica recently, and they've never both been out of Japan at the same time before. So I thought you deserved a little something besides that new rank insignia…"

She reached into one of the large pockets on her lab coat and produced a small, rectangular item wrapped up in gift paper.

"For me? Domo arigato, sempai!" Maya said, accepting the gift and tearing off the paper. She gasped when she saw what it was. "The latest book in the _Love and Destiny_ series? But how…?"

Ritsuko grinned. "I've seen you reading romance novels on slow days, or at least I did when you worked as my assistant," she explained. "Personally I never enjoyed those things, but far be it from me to criticize another's hobbies."

"Sempai…"

Unable to express herself with words, Maya reached out and hugged her former mentor. Ritsuko was surprised but soon returned the embrace, enjoying the simple show of affection without any hidden and potentially insidious undercurrents like she those she shared with Gendo.

"So," Ritsuko said after they had separated, "would you like to go out for a drink tonight to celebrate? I'd have taken you to the Pulse during lunch for cocktails, but I'm afraid of turning you into Misato."

Maya forced herself to chuckle along with Ritsuko, fervently hoping that the blonde couldn't smell any alcohol on her breath. "I would love to, sempai."

* * *

"Remember this place, Shinji-kun?" Misao asked.

Shinji gazed out over at Tokyo-3, bathed in the orange light of the setting sun. It was really a spectacular view, and with the city in its peacetime formation, it was impossible to tell by looking at it that the place was built to be a fortress.

He smiled. "How could I forget?" he asked. "You took me here after my first time in EVA, so I could see the city transform."

Silence fell for a few moments after that, both of them thinking how everything, especially one another, had changed since then.

"I'm sorry," they both said abruptly.

Misao blinked. "What do _you_ have to be sorry for?" she asked, confused.

"You're the one who used to be an officer," Shinji explained, looking away. "I had no business telling you what you should've done during the battle. And I shouldn't have said that I thought you just thought of us as components to make the EVA work. I know you care more for us than that."

"Shinji-kun, you have nothing to apologize for," Misao said firmly. "You were right. It wasn't my place to fight with Maya like that during a sortie, and I was treating Asuka like she was…disposable. I let my emotions get away with me."

"Why?" Shinji asked meekly.

Misao sighed, toying with her cross pendant. He had a right to know, she decided. "As you know, my father led the expedition that accidentally caused Second Impact..."

Shinji listened silently as Misao told him about her dysfunctional relationship with her father, who sounded so much like his own, and how it had come to an abrupt halt thanks to Second Impact and Adam, the First Angel. How she hated the Angels with every fiber of her being.

He realized that all the time he'd been scrambling around, desperately searching for a reason to pilot EVA, he had never wondered what Misao's reason for joining NERV and wanting to pilot was. To him, she had always been this idealized person—perfectly happy, vibrant, and not screwed up—who just happened to work for NERV. It was jarring for him to find out that this wasn't the case, but he found that it didn't diminish her in his mind and thus didn't lessen his motivation to protect her. He just felt like he could understand her better.

He realized that it had been selfish of him, in a way, to expect Misao to be exactly the way he thought she was, the way he'd believed he needed her to be.

"Still, none of what happened to me is an excuse for what I did at Mount Asuma, or for what I said to you there," Misao said. "I shouldn't have accused you of those things."

"I really don't pilot for glory, or because I feel like I have to be the hero," Shinji said softly.

Part of him wanted to add "I pilot because I hate EVA, and I care about you. I don't want you to go into that terrible thing, or into the line of fire against the Angels."

But the words caught in his throat, and Shinji found he couldn't say them. He was too afraid. Afraid that Misao would think the idea of him defending her ludicrous, or that she might demand he step aside and allow her to pilot. Because even knowing why Misao wanted to join the battle, he still didn't want her to. Perhaps it was arrogant of him, but he didn't think she truly appreciated Evangelion's dark power. _She_ hadn't seen that horrible, soul piercing green eye reforming in Unit One's uncovered head immediately after the First Battle of Tokyo-3, after all. He had.

So he said nothing further, and the potential moment of confession was lost.

"I believe you. I don't know why I ever thought you piloted for such self-centered reasons," Misao said with a small smile.

She found herself unwilling to press him about what his reason for fighting really was. As she herself knew only too well, such motivations could be private, and she didn't want to intrude upon his privacy, despite her curiosity.

"It was foolish and heartless of me to say things like that to you, and I swear I'll never let it happen again," she continued. "Can you forgive me, Shinji-kun?"

He smiled. "Of course I forgive you," he said. "That is, if you forgive me."

"Shinji-kun, I already told you, there's nothing to forgive," Misao said. "Though I would appreciate it if you'd vote for me to be leader if the power ever goes out again."

"I may have to vote for Rei if it happens again. She's the one who knows her way around the base," he said with a grin. He quickly sobered again, however. "Still, Misao, I do think there's something to forgive. I knew you cared about us even when I said you didn't. I was just so angry that I wanted to hurt you, and for that I'm sorry."

"I understand. I forgive you," Misao said. She looked at him pensively for a moment before giving him a small smile and adding, "You know, you've matured a lot since the day I first picked you up, more than I ever would have expected. For a while there I was afraid that you'd collapse under the pressure, but you've risen to the challenge of piloting EVA like a champion, Shinji-kun."

Shinji blushed. "A-Arigato."

"So, still best friends?" Misao asked.

"Still best friends," Shinji confirmed.

They hugged one another tightly. It began as a friendly gesture, nothing more, but almost immediately both Shinji and Misao were struck by how _right _it felt. They parted slightly, their arms still loosely draped over one another, and looked silently into each other's eyes. Then, though neither of them consciously commanded their bodies to do so, they both slowly began to lean forward.

Time seemed to elongate until each second felt like minutes. Shinji's head was spinning. He could barely believe what was happening. He had always considered Misao to be attractive, of course, but not until this moment had he realized just how much he wanted this, nor had he ever dared to hope anything more powerful than friendship could exist between them.

Misao's heart was pounding. They had gotten close enough now that she could feel his hot breath on her face.

_This _can't_ just be teenage hormones,_ she thought distantly as she stared into his eyes.

It had taken her a long time to really admit to herself the attraction she felt for him, but now it was impossible to deny any longer. He had become so close to her and so dependable since her transformation, totally unlike her father. She closed her eyes…

_What the hell are you doing?! He's just a kid!_ The part of her that was still almost thirty screeched from nowhere.

Startled, Misao pulled back abruptly, out of Shinji's embrace. He looked confused and hurt, and she turned away, unable to meet his eyes.

_What the hell _was_ I doing_? She thought. _Maybe Shinji and Asuka weren't meant to be, but he still deserves better than a crazy whore like me._

"Let's…let's go home," Misao said, her voice thick.

Shinji just nodded and the two began the trip back to the apartment, an unspoken pact to never mention this incident again already formed between them.

* * *

When Makoto reported that an Angel had been detected, Maya's first thought was that it was a good thing she hadn't had enough alcohol the previous night with Ritsuko to be hung over. Her second thought wasn't really an actual thought so much as it was burst of panic as she realized she was at the top of the chain of command with both Commanders near the South Pole, more than a hemisphere away.

"Status report," she ordered, somehow managing to keep her voice from shaking.

"The Angel appeared about two minutes ago in orbit over the Indian Ocean," Makoto said.

"Send recon satellite number six into that orbit," Maya said.

"You got it," Sakura said. "T-minus two minutes to contact."

"The target has been sighted," Aoba said.

The main screen switched to a view of the Tenth Angel, a huge orange thing that looked like it had an eye in the center of its body. Hyuga gasped. "It's enormous."

"It's big," Maya agreed gravely.

"Recon six in now in range," Aoba announced. "Commencing data search…search complete. Transmitting data."

Mere seconds after he said this, the satellite scanning the Angel crumpled, and the image of it was replaced by snow. Maya grimaced. "A new use of the AT field," she said.

"All right, Situation Room, everyone," Maya said. "And somebody contact the pilots."

* * *

"The Angel has been dropping parts of its own mass onto the Earth for the last two hours," Sakura reported. "The combination of the AT field impact and simple kinetic energy has been causing huge tidal waves when it hits the ocean."

"Unfortunately, it looks like tidal waves will be the least of our problems," Ritsuko put it. "The Angel has been steadily correcting its error ratio. It's learning to aim itself."

"We detonated an aerial N2 mine on the target," Makoto added. "No effect, I'm afraid."

"The Angel has been hiding since then," Aoba continued. "It's using its ECM jamming to keep us from accurately locating it, despite its size."

"It's coming here," Maya said, rubbing her eyes tiredly. "They all come here."

"It's a safe bet," Ritsuko agreed. "And if it falls on us, this area will become part of the Pacific Ocean."

"Can we contact the Commander?" Maya asked.

"No, we can't get through the Angel's jamming," Aoba said.

"What do the MAGI say?" Maya asked.

"All three recommend evacuation," Sakura answered.

"What will you do, Maya?" Ritsuko asked. "You're the one in charge of all this now."

Misao, present but silent, watched Maya intently. The Fourth Child wasn't so sure of her own judgment anymore, but if Maya couldn't handle the pressure, she would have to step in and help her again.

But, to Misao's relief, Maya rose to the occasion. "I am issuing a D-17 special declaration. I want all civilians and D-class personnel within fifty kilometers of here to evacuate immediately. Also, tell the Matsushiro base to backup the MAGI."

"What about us?" Makoto asked. "Will we evacuate as well?"

"Let's get all the civilians out of here first, then we'll confront that," Maya said.

She made an admirable attempt at hiding it, but Misao knew that the new Operations Director hadn't fooled anyone. Maya didn't know what to do.

* * *

"I thought I might find you here," Misao said, causing Maya to look up from what she was doing.

The current Operations Director was in a laboratory that rarely if ever saw use during the times when NERV was combating an Angel. Her face was bathed in the green glow from a computer screen that Maya had been working at intently.

"Hello, Misao," Maya greeted her.

"You shouldn't disappear like this," Misao chided Maya softly. "It's bad for morale when the leader vanishes."

"It'll be worse for morale if everyone realizes that the Operations Director doesn't have the slightest clue what we should do," Maya replied, clearly miserable. "Besides, they don't need me there to evacuate the city."

"There's symbolic value in having the person in charge at the helm in a time of crisis," Misao pointed out.

"Sitting around and being symbolic on the command center won't help me figure out how to proceed," Maya countered turning back to the computer.

Misao sighed inwardly. _Leave it to a computer technician to look to the MAGI for a solution._

"What have you found out?" Misao asked.

Maya gestured to the screen, and Misao leaned in and looked at the data displayed there. She winced.

"I have to make an impossible choice," Maya said miserably.

"Welcome to command," Misao said softly with the ghost of smile. "Listen, Maya, you have to do what you think is right. I'm not going to make this decision for you, but whatever course you choose, I'll try and help you proceed as smoothly as possible."

"Thank you," Maya said.

"Whatever you decide, decide quickly," Misao added as she left.

* * *

"I'm surprised at you, Maya," Ritsuko said.

The gargantuan task of getting everyone evacuated had finally been completed, and the heads of the Operations Department and Technical Division One were taking a powder in the ladies room while they could.

"Honestly, so am I," Maya confessed.

"The MAGI have calculated the chance of success as one in ten thousand," Ritsuko said. "This is a foolish gamble to take."

"I've run the probability assessments, sempai. All of them," Maya replied. "Several times, in fact. And while our odds winning this battle if we fight are bad, our odds of winning the war if we don't aren't exactly stellar, either."

"What do you mean?" Ritsuko asked.

"Even assuming that the remaining Angels aren't stronger than the recent ones, which is a very big assumption, the MAGI calculate that the chances of NERV defeating them with Central destroyed are miniscule," Maya said. "After all, the branches were created for EVA construction and research, not combat like Tokyo-3. Allowing this Angel to destroy the city and then trying to fight its remaining siblings would be like letting a computer virus take over the MAGI and then trying to excise it with a laptop."

Ritsuko's eyes narrowed. "What are the odds of NERV defeating the Angels with Central destroyed?"

"Slightly better than the odds of the EVA's stopping this Angel, according to the MAGI," Maya admitted reluctantly.

"Then why aren't we _all_ evacuating?" Ritsuko demanded, exasperated. "Maya, you're using one probability assessment as justification to ignore another! Why?"

"Because I believe that we have a better chance of winning here than the MAGI calculate," Maya said.

Ritsuko's eyes widened. "_You_ are doubting our greatest technology?"

"I'd more say that I trust the pilots, and the EVA's," Maya responded. "Think about some of things we've seen done, sempai. The activation of the 'O9' system, the success of Operation Amaterasu, the destruction of a marine Angel by an EVA in B-type equipment. The odds of all that happening were terrible, but it was done. I guess I've come to believe that the pilots and the EVA's have something that the MAGI can't figure into its probability assessments."

Ritsuko sighed. "I never thought I'd see the day you put your faith in luck, Maya."

"I've seen a lot of things out of myself I thought I never would, since I got this job," Maya said. "Excuse me, sempai. I need to brief the pilots."

* * *

"What?! You want us to catch it in our hands?!" Asuka demanded, incredulous.

"Yes, that's exactly what I want," Maya said. "This Angel is essentially a giant mass driver. You three will use your EVA's and AT fields to catch it before it can impact."

"What if the EVA's can't stand the impact?" Asuka asked.

"Then Tokyo-3 will be destroyed," Maya answered.

"What if you can't figure out where it's going to fall?" Asuka asked.

"Then Tokyo-3 will be destroyed," Maya repeated.

"If we pull this off, it'll be a miracle," Asuka said, scowling.

"Miracles aren't something that just happen," Misao put in with a frown from her place next to Asuka. "They're something that people make happen."

"Listen," Maya said, "given the low chance of success, I won't order you to do this. You may refuse this mission if you wish."

The four pilots responded with silence. Maya nodded. "The regulations say that all of you need to write a will. Have you done that yet?"

"I don't need to write a will," Asuka snapped. "I'm not going to die just yet."

"Neither do I," Rei agreed. "There's no point to it."

"I don't plan on dying either. Besides, I have no good stuff anyway," Shinji said, grinning weakly.

Really, if he was going to die, his only concern was that he somehow make sure that Unit One went with him.

Misao forced a chuckle at her friend's rather weak attempt at humor. "I don't plan on kicking the bucket anytime soon."

Maya smiled slightly. "I knew I could count on you. Now, we've estimated where the Angel is going to land, but there's a lot of area to cover, so we're going to put each of you at separate positions."

"How have these positions been determined?" Rei asked.

* * *

" 'What little data we have…and women's intuition,'" Asuka said in a surprisingly good imitation of Maya as the three primary pilots rode the lift up to the EVA cages. "I don't believe this. This is the craziest operation ever!"

"We've done crazier things, though I can't quite think of one at the moment," Shinji said. "Besides, you could have refused, you know."

"Hmph, and let you have all the glory?" Asuka asked. "No way, Third Child! I still have to prove that I'm the best pilot, and that Mr. Almighty Highest Sync Ratio will crumble under pressure like cheap tinfoil."

Shinji just sighed.

* * *

"All right, you guys, you can go now," Maya said, returning to the command center after the EVA's had been launched. "There's no need for you to risk your lives, too."

"Sorry, this is our job, too," Aoba said.

"Yeah, we can't let those kids risk their lives all by themselves," Makoto said.

"…right," Sakura said reluctantly, sitting back down in her chair.

Maya smiled and nodded. "Thanks, guys," she said, then turned to Misao. "With Shinji piloting Unit One, there's no need for you to be here. You can evacuate if you wish."

"No," Misao said softly. "There's no point."

Which was true, so far as Misao was concerned. If this operation failed, all her close friends would die. NERV would likely wither and be shut down, probably to be replaced with a program featuring something as useless as the Jet Alone. Shinji would die.

There would, in short, be no reason for her to go on living.

Maya frowned but nodded and turned back to the main screen.

* * *

Waiting inside the EVA for the operation to begin, Shinji couldn't keep his mind from drifting back to that near kiss with Misao yesterday. It came as little surprise to him. The previous night, even the soothing melodies provided by his SDAT couldn't keep thoughts of it at bay. His SDAT had for years kept his mind off of his inner demons when he lay down to sleep, but against the memory of how tantalizingly close his lips had come to Misao, it was powerless.

That almost kiss had haunted his dreams the previous night as well.

He wished they had kissed, but, failing that, he wished they hadn't nearly kissed. In that moment, he'd lost his ability to fool himself into thinking he didn't desire her _that_ much. Now that he'd been forced to acknowledge it, but couldn't have her…

_Shut up!_ He mentally snarled at himself. _You're being an idiot. Misao deserves better than a screwed up coward like you! Concentrate on the mission! And remember: win, or lose so hard that there isn't enough of Unit One left afterwards to fill a bento box._

"The Angel has been sighted!" Maya announced over the radio a moment later. "All EVA's get on your marks!"

Shinji nodded and did as he was ordered, a look of steely determination on his face.

"Commence the operation!" Maya ordered.

The umbilical cables were ejected from all three EVA Units at once. "Let's move out!" Shinji shouted.

* * *

Asuka threw Unit Two into a full out sprint the instant Maya gave the order, barely taking the time to disconnect her umbilical cable from it first.

The normally light footed Evangelion tore up dirt and pavement as it ran across the city, toward the falling form of the Tenth Angel, the crimson titan transforming into a blur with its speed.

_Faster!_ Asuka urged her Unit Two.

She _had_ to prove that she and her production model were superior to Shinji and his test-type kludge.

_Faster!_

All those years of training, years in which she'd sacrificed so much for Evangelion, would be for nothing if a boy who hadn't lain eyes upon EVA until mere months ago surpassed her.

_Faster!_

She was the best. She had worked damn hard for the title, and she would be damned if she'd lose it to a weakling like Shinji Ikari.

_Faster!_

After all, if she lost to a pathetic wuss, what would that make _her_?

_Faster!_

Unit Two left the city proper, and a tall, grassy hill directly below the Angel came into view. She looked up at beast, resembling a giant, alien eye wreathed in plasma from its descent. It looked almost like a hieroglyph, a hieroglyph large enough to blot out the sky and rain death upon the earth.

All in all, it was a suitably impressive foe and definitely a worthy adversary for the Second Child of NERV. Asuka urged Unit Two to even greater speed.

Then she saw the violet form of Unit One crest the hill. Asuka's jaw dropped, and for a moment, her mind was clear of everything besides her shock. Unit Two came dangerously close to stumbling as its pilot gaped, but Asuka was able to regain control in time.

"Spreading AT field!" Shinji shouted, as nearby structures and trees were blown away as Unit One's invisible barrier expanded.

Unit One held its arms up as the Angel descended, a hexagonal shield of energy flashing into view as the Third Child fought gravity and the Tenth Angel's momentum. Asuka could hear Shinji grunting with the effort, knowing that he could feel the strain in his own body.

Her training taking over, Asuka finished her journey toward ground zero practically on automatic. With a thought, Unit Two's AT field exploded into existence with a flare of light, and the scarlet war machine lifted its arms and accepted part of the burden from its violet counterpart.

"Where the hell is Rei?!" Asuka demanded of no one in particular, knowing it would take all three EVA Units to end this battle.

"I'm coming!" Rei replied over the radio.

Seconds later, the blue giant joined Units One and Two on the hill, and the third AT field bulwarked the defense against the Angel.

"I got it!" Shinji shouted. "Do it!"

The left shoulder pylons on both Units Zero and Two opened, revealing the progressive knives concealed within. Rei grabbed her weapon and sliced a hole into the Angel's AT field with surgical precision, exposing the core, which looked like a red pupil at the center of the Angel's false eye.

With a roar, Asuka plunged her knife into the core. There was a shower of sparks, and then the Angel's AT field abruptly died, rendering the would-be destroyer of mankind no more than a very large, inanimate object.

Exhausted, the three EVA pilots finally allowed its mass to crash down onto the ground. There was a great explosion, and a crater that would become a new lake was formed.

However, Evangelion had been made to shrug off far more than _that_. When the fire and smoke and dust cleared, the three EVA Units could be seen in the center of the crater. Their batteries had nearly run dry, but they, and their pilots, were unscathed.

Shinji let out a sigh of relief and opened communications channels to both Asuka and Rei. "Well, we did it," he stated simply.

Asuka just glared at him in response. She wished he would boast about how _he_ had made it to the Angel first, so she could blow up on him.

Shinji just blinked at the Second Child's belligerent expression, wondering what he'd done to upset her now.

* * *

The mood in the command center was surprisingly tense considering the great victory NERV had just achieved, but everyone knew why. The Second Child was currently a powder keg just _waiting _for a spark. Even if not everyone was quite sure _why_ Asuka was in such a state, everyone could see the barely restrained rage in the redhead's eyes and her quick, almost violent movements.

Maya looked at Asuka's scowling face and held back a sigh.

"Our wireless communications have been restored," Aoba announced. "We're receiving a transmission from Commander Ikari in Antarctica."

"Connect him," Maya ordered.

"Yes, ma'am," Aoba replied.

A two dimensional hologram of a window marked "Sound Only" appeared from a small projector by Aoba's terminal.

"Sir, because of my actions, Unit One had incurred some damage," Maya said. "I aplogize for this, sir."

"Destroying Angels is what the EVA's were created to do," Fuyutski said. "We're fortunate that the damage was minimal."

"Excellent work, Major Ibuki," Gendo spoke up. "I'll leave the handling of the rest of this in your capable hands."

"Yes, sir," Maya said.

The screen winked out.

* * *

"You might have spared a few words of congratulations for your son, Ikari," Fuyutski commented as he and Gendo left the radio room of the ship they were aboard.

Gendo smirked slightly at the slight but perceptible sourness in his former teacher's voice. "There was no need," he said. "Shinji's focus and motivations have shifted. He no longer pilots in an attempt to earn my approval. At best he would see words of encouragement from me as the icing on his proverbial cake."

"So why does the Third Child pilot these days?" Fuyutski asked.

Gendo didn't reply, refusing to admit that the exact reason continued to elude him.

* * *

"Well, you guys pulled off the impossible again," Misao said cheerfully. "Keep this up, and the remaining Angels won't know what hit them!"

She, Shinji and Rei were currently sitting in an upscale sushi restaurant, partaking in a celebratory dinner at Misao's insistence. Misao had originally wanted to go to a steak place, but they had changed the plans when Rei had told them she was a vegetarian. However, since each of them drew a rather substantial paycheck, they decided to indulge themselves anyway. Rei was now quietly consuming horrifically overprice veggied rolls, while Shinji and Misao ate sushi with fish and crabmeat in it.

"I hope so," Shinji said. "Say, why isn't Asuka here?"

"She…wasn't in the mood to come," Misao said, her expression darkening.

_It's not hard to figure out why,_ Shinji thought. He didn't want to piss off Asuka, but he had to do what he had to do.

"I see," he said, then forced a smile. "Well, shall we make this a regular thing? Come here after every victory against the Angels? Who knows, they might start calling this place the pilot's restaurant."

"Pilot Soryu may never wish to join us," Rei pointed out.

"Asuka never sits with us at lunch, either," Shinji argued amicably. "That hasn't stopped everyone from calling our spot the pilot's table."

Misao smiled. "It's a little late in the game to start up a post-victory tradition, but what the heck? Every time EVA hands another Angel its ass, we'll come here to celebrate!"

Shinji nodded. "It's settled, then. Rei, I hope you'll be joining us when we come here in the future."

"If I am able to, I will," Rei said, actually smiling slightly.

So the three Children made a vow, blissfully unaware of the fact that they would never visit this particular restaurant again.

* * *

Author's Notes: First of all, please don't shoot me for getting your hopes up with that aborted kiss. Second of all, I know that several of you have expressed hopes that Shinji would tell Misao his reason for piloting. If I were doing fan fiction for a different series, I probably would have done that. But this is Evangelion, an anime that, behind the giant mecha battles, was a show all about a group of screwed up individuals who should have been able to understand one another, should have been able to lean on each other, and should have been able to keep each other from collapsing into complete wrecks at the end, but didn't. Instead there was animosity built upon misunderstandings and misconceptions, pulling away from others, pushing others away, and just a general failure to connect.

In short, the characters in Evangelion do not talk to one another about their feelings, at least not unless something really extraordinary happens first to compel them to do so. But take heart, dear readers. Really extraordinary isn't an impossibly tall of an order in the city of Tokyo-3.

Anyway, on to the matter of Maya's decision to fight the Angel rather than evacuate. I couldn't allow the Angel to destroy Tokyo-3, but Maya just up and deciding to stay and fight in the same manner Misato did wouldn't have felt right. So I put poor Maya firmly between a rock and a hard place, and hoped that her character has been changed enough that it didn't seem OOC of her to have gone against what the MAGI suggested was the best course of action. There's far more logic in her decision making process than there was in Misato's in cannon, but she does still make a leap of faith.

Now, next up is…well, actually that's up to all of you. In my rough draft, I pretty much skipped episodes 13 (the Eleventh Angel, the one that hacked the MAGI), 14 (mostly a clip show, plus Unit Zero going berserk with Shinji inside), and 15 (Shinji and Gendo visiting Yui's grave, as well as the Shinji/Asuka and Misato/Kaji kisses, which obviously wouldn't occur here). Really, they only got mentioned. However, if enough of you want me to, dear reviewers, I'll cobble at least one chapter together for this trio of episodes. If not, then it's on to the Twelfth Angel we go.

Orionpax, you have an odd tendency of reading my mind; Shinji surpassing Asuka's sync ratio had always been part of the plan for this chapter.

NefCanuck, remember, though Misato never really showed it until the head trip that was the last two episodes of the series, she had her own self-esteem issues, feeling that she was filthy. Then there's all the new issues caused by her transformation, plus the fact that Shinji and Asuka's relationship had become more amicable while he was fight with Misao, so her conclusion at the end of last chapter does make some sense when viewed from her perspective.

As always, thanks to all my readers and reviewers.

* * *

Omake

Lightweight

"I really shouldn't," Maya said, eyeing the cocktail before her warily. "I mean, I have to go back to work after this…"

"Oh, loosen up," Misao said. "It's not like you'll be falling down drunk after just one glass, and we need to celebrate your promotion somehow."

Shrugging, Maya picked up her glass and began to drink.

* * *

_One hour later…_

Hoping that Maya would like the book she'd purchased for her, Ritsuko walked into her former subordinate's office. She stopped short at what she saw.

Maya was half laying on her desk in what looked like a very uncomfortable position. Ritsuko would have thought that the petite brunette was sleeping, if not for the quiet giggles that were emanating from Maya.

"Maya? Are you all right?" Ritsuko asked worriedly.

Maya looked up and grinned. "Super duper, sempai!" she replied cheerfully, noticeably slurring her words.

"Have you been drinking?" Ritsuko demanded.

"Just—hic!—just a little," Maya confessed. "Misao bought me a drink to…to celebrate!"

Maya dissolved into a fit of giggles, as though what she'd said was the funniest thing she'd heard in a very long time.

Ritsuko wiped a hand over her face, unable to believe what her old friend had done to her old protégé.

"Maya—"

"You're pretty, sempai," Maya interrupted her.

Ritsuko felt her face heat and her ears burn, though she didn't know why. After all, she didn't have any kind of feelings for Maya, and Maya probably wouldn't have any feelings for her after a few cups of black coffee.

Right?

"A-Arigato, Maya," Ritsuko said, "but—"

"I gots a Jacuzzi back home," Maya interrupted again.

"Huh?"

"A Jacuzzi. Ya know, it's like a hot tub, but it's all bubbly and the water goes _whoosh_ around you!" Maya explained. "The nice men brought it one day, and it's _really_ nice. Do you wanna come to my place and _try_ it?" she added in the tone a child might use while offering some prize or present to another child, grinning drunkenly at the blonde.

Ritsuko blinked once, twice, three times. Then…

"Eh, what the hell? I can take off work early today," Ritsuko said.

"Sugoi!"


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

Chapter Eleven: **Contamination/Of Weddings, Death, and Music**

Shinji decided that the decontamination process reminded him of a car wash. The giant circular brushes were fortunately absent, as was the giant cloth at the end; these had been replaced by blasts of soapy water and warm air. The hot wax had also mercifully been left out, but the whole automated cleaning process still made him feel very much like NERV regarded the pilots as just one more component needed to make Evangelion work, which could be treated more or less like any other machine. It was a depressing thought.

Then, the doors to the little elevator car like room that he was inside slid open with a hiss, leaving only a pane of frosted glass that didn't reach above his neck or below his knees separating him from a very long, very white hallway that led to the Evangelion dummy bodies, and Shinji found his thoughts shifting away from such philosophical issues under the weight of his embarrassment at what was happening.

"I don't see why we have to do this naked!" Asuka snapped testily from a similar room next to his.

Shinji normally found Asuka's complaints annoying, but at the moment he was thinking about making her his official spokeswoman.

"We need the data for this auto-pilot system to be as clear as possible, which means eliminating any interference caused by both clothes and microbes," Ritsuko explained over an intercom. "Just showering and wearing your plug suits aren't enough."

"I won't do it!" Asuka proclaimed. "I won't parade around naked in front of all of you!"

"We do respect your privacy as much as possible," Maya spoke up, also over the intercom. "We're switching off all the cameras."

"Oh, so all I have to worry about is the baka hentai, then," Asuka growled.

From her own little stall, Misao rolled her eyes. "Asuka, calling Shinji a pervert is like…is like…" she trailed off, seemingly unable to find an appropriate analogy. Apparently she couldn't even imagine anything equally absurd.

Shinji cleared his throat. "Uh, if it'll make you feel better, I can go first, then the rest of you can go after I'm in the plug," he offered. "If you'll, um, close your eyes that is."

The three female EVA pilots gave their agreement, and Shinji reached out to hit the button that would move the frosted glass barrier aside. His hand paused right before he pressed it as he was hit by a wave of self-consciousness. Suddenly, Shinji was extremely aware of how scrawny he was, which was unusual, since he rarely worried over his appearance much.

"Promise you won't look?" he asked meekly.

"Like you have anything worth looking _at_," Asuka growled. "Move it, baka!"

"Well, since you asked twice…" Misao said.

"I promise, Ikari," Rei said in her typical soft voice.

Taking a deep breath, Shinji pressed the button and walked out into the hall at a quick pace, barely able to keep himself from sprinting to the privacy of the simulation plug.

"Wow, Shinji-kun, have you been working out?" Misao called.

"_What?!"_ Shinji squawked, whirling around without thinking about it, even as he broke out into a full body blush.

He saw the three female pilots, all of whom still had their eyes firmly shut. Shinji groaned, unable to believe how easily she'd tricked him.

Misao laughed. "I can't believe you fell for that, Shinji-kun! Besides, there was no need to freak out so much. It's not like I haven't seen everything you've got already."

"What?!" Asuka snapped.

"What have you been doing in that apartment of yours?" Ritsuko demanded.

"Maybe you'd know if you weren't such a deadbeat guardian," Misao sassed back, evicting a groan from Akagi.

"…nothing happened," Shinji spoke up, just before breaking into a run and then sealing himself into the simulation plug.

* * *

"All the pilots are ready for entry," Sakura reported from the Pribnow box's control room, bringing up an image from heat monitors in the plug, showing the forms of the four Children sitting in their command chairs.

"Thank goodness," Akagi sighed. "Insert the simulation plugs and commence data recording."

"Yes, ma'am," Sakura said, typing in the appropriate commands.

Inside the Pribnow box, the four plugs smoothly entered the headless Evangelion torsos.

"Connect system to the dummy bodies," Akagi ordered.

"Hai," Sakura said, "Simulation program has handed over control to the MAGI."

Standing off to the side a bit, Maya looked at the main screen, where data was streaming by far too quickly for a mere human to hope to be able to read. "It never ceases to amaze me," the former technician commented.

Ritsuko gave Maya a small smile before she continued overseeing the experiment. "How does it feel?" she asked the pilots.

"Different," was Rei's succinct response.

"Yeah, it's hard to describe," Shinji agreed. "It's definitely not the same as piloting a real EVA."

"The right arm feel clear, but everything else is fuzzy," Asuka added.

"I don't even have that," Misao put in. "The whole body feels fuzzy to me."

Ritsuko had the pilots do or attempt to do various things with their simulation bodies before she declared herself satisfied, and everyone sat back for another long and boring test. Despite the change in venue, it looked very much like there would be little difference between this experiment and the average harmonics test.

Appearances, of course, could be deceiving.

* * *

"It looks like corrosion on the 87th protein wall," Aoba said as Vice Commander Fuyutski looked over his shoulder, gazing at his screen. "See, if I zoom in here, you can see a color change has taken place."

Fuyutski nodded as he observed the brownish stain on the wall. "That area was updated only recently," he commented.

"Yes, sir," Aoba agreed, "but construction was done very hastily, and as a result some air bubbles got in."

"It was right after the Third Angel arrived that that was built," Makoto added. "Everyone was so exhausted with the avalanche of work that came after that, I'm not surprised things were done sloppily around here."

"Well, have it fixed by Tuesday or Ikari will chew my ass off," Fuyutski said.

"Yes, sir."

* * *

Back in the Pribnow box control room, the ominous sound of slowly buckling metal filled the ears of the personnel there. Ritsuko looked around worriedly.

"Is there another water leak?" she asked, exasperation tinting her voice.

"No," Sakura answered after briefly conferring with someone over her omnipresent headset. "There's corrosion in the 87th protein wall."

"Will it interrupt this test?" Ritsuko asked.

"Not at present, no," Sakura answered.

"Good," Ritsuko said. "Let's proceed, then. Ikari will chew my ass off if I don't get this data on schedule."

Satisfied that everything was fine, at least for the moment, Ritsuko turned back to the main screen.

Just before klaxons and warning messages began blaring everywhere.

"What's happening?!" the blond scientist demanded.

"A contamination alert has gone off for Sigma Unit!" Sakura announced, her voice betraying more than a hint of fear.

The Pribnow box was inside Sigma Unit, after all.

"The 87th protein wall has degraded," another technician announced. "Temperature is increasing rapidly."

"There's a problem in the number six pipeline," Sakura added. "The corroded area's expanding rapidly!"

"Abort the experiment!" Akagi barked. "Disconnect the number six pipeline!"

"Hai!" Sakura replied at once, practically punching the appropriate buttons.

They could hear the heavy machinery around them working to isolate the contaminated area. Everyone looked anxiously at Sakura, wanting to know whether it had worked.

"Contamination is still spreading!" Sakura exclaimed. "It's moving from wall to wall!"

"Ready the polysome," Ritsuko commanded. "Set the lasers at maximum. Fire as soon as the contaminant reaches here."

"Hai."

Several small doors inside the Pribnow opened, allowed robots that looked almost like miniature VTOLs to enter. The swarm of machines swam over to where the corrosion was likely to first appear and waited, looking as predatory as a faceless robot possibly could.

Then there was nothing to do but wait.

"It's coming," Sakura said as she anxiously stared at her screen.

A small, dark smile made its way onto Maya's face as she remembered a line from an old horror movie she'd seen once. _They're here…_

A scream suddenly split the tense silence in the control room, as if the universe itself had picked up on Maya's frame of mind. The petite brunette started.

"Rei," Ritsuko breathed.

"The First Child's simulation body is moving by itself!" Sakura exclaimed.

"Impossible!" Ritsuko said.

But, impossible or not, it was happening. Rei's dummy body, which was bolted to the wall like all the others, looked like it was trying to pull itself free. Fortunately, the thick bolt's holding it had been drilled into several of the very vertebrae of the body, and it failed to liberate itself from its restraints. Giving up, it lifted one arm and reached out toward the control room.

Sakura smashed the thin layer of glass in front of a large switch marked "forced shutdown" and pulled it. Small but powerful explosive charges located in the dummy body's elbow went off, blowing the headless beast's forearm off and stopping its assault before it could begin.

"What about Rei?" Maya asked.

"She's alive," Sakura replied.

"Eject all the plugs!" Ritsuko commanded. "Fire the lasers! Now!"

"Hai!"

A series of small rockets in each plug flared, sending the metal containers soaring out of the dummy bodies and upwards toward the ceiling. A large door opened up to allow them to escape and the plugs had soon journeyed out of the base, heading to the safety of the Geofront floor.

Beams of deadly red light shot out from the weapon barrels of the polysomes, striking the rogue simulation body. For a few seconds, no one had any idea what was happening as the water bubbled furiously and hid any effect the lasers might be having.

Then the bubbles cleared up just enough for Maya to spot a cluster of hexagonal shields of light protecting the dummy body from the lasers.

"Impossible! It's an AT field!" Maya exclaimed, just as some red, luminescent substance began to grow all over the dummy bodies like an out of control fungus.

"The pattern's blue! It's an Angel!" Sakura said grimly.

"We have to isolate the box!" Maya announced. "All personnel, evacuate!"

The various technicians in the room didn't need to be told twice and quickly got up from their chairs and fled toward the exit. Ritsuko was another matter, however. The blonde just stared darkly at the Angel, even as the glass that separated the control room from the Pribnow box began to crack, tiny jets of water starting to spurt in.

"Sempai!" Maya said. "We have to go!"

Ritsuko didn't say anything, but she did begin running, and the two just managed to escape and shut the door behind them just before the window shattered and allowed a tidal wave of water to pour into the control room.

* * *

Over an hour and a failed attempt to kill the Eleventh Angel with ozone later, the senior staff of NERV stood around a table in the command center, observing images and readouts on the Angel on the monitor that was part of the tabletop.

Any way one looked at it, their situation was grim. Not only had the Angel evolved to be able to thrive off of what they'd tried to kill it with, but it had transformed itself into what was essentially a living computer that could hack and code faster than any human could ever hope to. The Angel had immediately used its incredible new abilities to invade the MAGI. Melchior had already been completely taken over. The Angel had then moved onto Balthasar, but some quick thinking on Akagi's part had managed to buy NERV some time.

And as if all of that wasn't bad enough, the Angel had already tried to initiate the base's self-destruct sequence, right after it reprogrammed the first MAGI unit. Casper and Balthasar had overridden Melchior, but if the Angel gained complete control of the triumvirate of supercomputers, it was certain that they were all doomed.

In addition to all these worries, Maya found herself puzzled by several of the actions Commander Ikari had taken in response to the Angel. Gendo had ordered the alarm to be called off in an attempt to make the Human Instrumentality Committee and the Japanese government believe that there was no attack. He had also ordered that the EVA Units be launched without pilots in order to keep them from being contaminated. This seemed logical enough, but he had commanded that Unit One, not the more modern Unit Two, be launched first.

"The only method of destroying this Angel that I can think of is destroying the MAGI," Maya softly, "but…"

She trailed off, seeing the way Ritsuko's eyes hardened at her suggestion. The identity of the MAGI's true creator was a surprisingly well kept secret among the rank and file NERV personnel, but Maya had written her senior thesis on the supercomputers and knew very well whose personality they contained.

"Destroying the MAGI means abandoning headquarters," Ritsuko said sharply.

"It should be a method of last resort," Maya said, hating herself for not taking the idea off the table entirely. However, she knew it would be a dereliction of her duty to do so. "If you've got another idea, I'd be more than willing to hear it."

"I do have an idea," Ritsuko said. "I believe that if the Angel continues to evolve, we can promote said evolution in a way that will lead to its own destruction."

"But how?" Maya asked. "Organisms evolve for the sole purpose of _survival_. There are no stimuli we can expose it to that will promote it toward a self-destructive evolutionary path."

Despite the direness of the situation, the corners of Ritsuko's mouth turned upwards. "Maya, I'm surprised at you; I would think that you'd be the first to realize what my plan is," she commented. "The Angel evolved into a living computer so it could hack the MAGI, but such a transformation creates a weakness as well. Since it's essentially a computer, we can reprogram _it_ and force it to evolve in a way that will result in death."

Maya was momentarily stunned by her former mentor's brilliance, but a potential flaw in the plan suddenly occurred to the brunette. "But in order for you to do that, you'll need to disable the firewalls between Casper and the other MAGI."

"It's a gamble on what's faster: Casper or the Angel," Gendo observed.

"Hai," Ritsuko acknowledged.

"Do you really believe that you can do this, Dr. Akagi?" Maya asked.

It felt strange to call Ritsuko anything other than "sempai" but Maya didn't think it would be appropriate to address her as such at the moment.

"Yes," Ritsuko said firmly. "You have my word."

Maya nodded. "All right. The tactical section will allow Technical Division One to run things…on one condition."

Ritsuko arched an eyebrow. "And what is that?"

Maya favored the bottle blonde with a small, sly smile. "That you consider me a part of Tech Division One again until the crisis is resolved."

"I wouldn't have it any other way," Ritsuko replied warmly.

* * *

Maya felt a quiet sense of awe washing over her as Ritsuko raised Casper out of the floor, the sight of the ugly, grimy pipes and other machinery that was usually hidden not phasing her in the least. Contained within Casper's casing was more computing power than existed in some of Japan's prefectures, Maya knew.

Ritsuko opened up a panel on the side of the computer, revealing a tunnel just large enough for an adult to crawl through. Maya frowned as she saw post-it notes without number stuck all over the guts of the machine.

"What're those?" she asked.

Ritsuko didn't answer her at first, crawling into the tunnel. "These are notes made by the developer."

Maya's eyes widened. "Incredible!" she exclaimed, grabbing one and examining it. She felt her confidence in their ability to reprogram the Angel increase as she studied it. "These are the secret codes and backdoors of the MAGI!"

"Thanks, Mom," Ritsuko said softly. "We can definitely make it."

Maya followed Ritsuko inside, the two of them leaving Sakura waiting outside with her laptop in hand. She looked around at the endless notes, unable to believe that such a treasure trove of information had been consigned to post-its and left in the dark of years and years.

She spotted several that had large characters written across them in bold, thick kanji. They said, "Ikari, you jerk!"

Maya smirked. _I guess the Commander hasn't changed since Dr. Naoko Akagi's time._

Working in concert, the two women went about the task of partially dismantling Casper, peeling away nonessential and backup hardware to get at the more vital components beneath. Mechanical entrails were soon scattered all over the floor outside the MAGI unit.

It was hard work, disassembling so much with so little time, and doing it from the cramped, stuffy confines of Casper, but Maya didn't mind it a bit. The former technician felt like she was back on her own turf for the first time since her promotion, and it was good to be back, if only for a little while.

Ritsuko stuck her hand out. "I need a—"

Maya placed the wrench in Ritsuko's hand before she could complete her request. She always had been able to predict what Ritsuko would need or want next, at least when it came to computers.

_This is so much more efficient than any of my interactions with the pilots,_ she mused.

"Arigato," Ritsuko said. "Board number 25, please."

Maya handed her the desired item, and Ritsuko connected it to Casper and began to type away at it.

"So," Ritsuko said, breaking the easy silence, "remind you of your college days?"

Maya smiled. "No," she answered. "Now if we could get my old roommate to have sex with a man she barely knows on top of Casper, then it _would_ feel like college all over again."

Ritsuko chuckled. "That bad, huh?"

"Yes," Maya said. "I was always expecting her to flunk out, too, but somehow she always managed to just barely pass."

Silence descended again for a few seconds. This time it was Maya who broke it.

"Kami-sama, but I've missed this," she said abruptly, her voice quiet but vehement.

Ritsuko grinned. "So have I, actually," she said.

Maya blushed slightly. "Thanks, sempai."

Intent as she was on what she was doing, Ritsuko didn't really notice her former protégé's reaction. "I'm just telling the truth," the scientist said.

There was yet another lull in their conversation, and again Maya was the one to speak up and end it. "So…" she began, "what was it like? To have someone as brilliant as the MAGI's creator for a mother, I mean."

Ritsuko laughed bitterly. "Terrible. Naoko Akagi excelled as scientist, but as mother, she was a failure."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Maya said guiltily, wishing she'd just kept her mouth shut.

"Don't be," Ritsuko said. "I've made my peace with it. My mother didn't feel like being a mother very often. She was too busy with being a scientist most of the time, and at college, her reputation always preceded me."

"It was that bad?" Maya asked quietly.

"Everybody there was afraid of me, except for Misato and Kaji," Ritsuko replied.

Like just about everyone, Maya had fought with her parents on more than one occasion, especially during her teenage years. However, she couldn't imagine feeling such bitterness toward either her mother or her father. She felt a stab of sympathy for Ritsuko.

"I'm sorry, sempai," Maya said.

"Not your fault, and like I said, I've made my peace with it," Ritsuko said. "Balthasar, Naoko Akagi as a mother, might have equal say among the MAGI units, but that wasn't true of the woman herself. To her, being a scientist always came before mother. The same is true about being a woman."

"A woman?" Maya asked.

"After my father left, she...had relations with younger men," Ritsuko said. "Some of which she really should have steered clear of."

"I see," Maya said, not knowing how else to reply. "You seemed rather keen to save the MAGI, for someone who didn't even like the person whose personality was transcribed onto them."

"I made that decision as a scientist," Ritsuko said.

Before Maya could say anything else, Ritsuko turned on a power saw and began cutting into the metal casing that covered the cloned brain which was the core of Casper. The noise effectively stifled further conversation on the topic, and Maya shook her head.

_Humans are more complicated than any computer could ever hope to be,_ she decided, strongly doubting that Ritsuko had made her decision to save the MAGI just as a scientist.

Having cut a diamond shaped hole in the brain case, Ritsuko carefully inserted long needles that were part of an I/O system created just for the MAGI into the gray matter of the computer's brain. Maya considered broaching the topic of Naoko Akagi now that Ritsuko had turned off the saw, but she decided against it.

Alarm klaxons suddenly began blaring all over again, and Maya was barely able to restrain the impulse to jump in fright, knowing that the result would be a rather painful bump on the head.

"It's taken over Balthasar!" they heard Makoto shout.

"Artificial intelligence has proposed self-destruction," announced the calm, digitized voice of the MAGI themselves. "Self destruction will commence in thirty seconds if all three MAGI units unanimously approve."

"The Angel's invading Casper!" Aoba called.

"Twenty seconds until self-destruct," the MAGI announced.

"Casper will be taken over in eighteen seconds!" Aoba added.

_If we lose, we'll only have three seconds to feel bad about it,_ Maya thought grimly.

"Ten," the MAGI began to count down. "Nine…eight…"

"Hurry, sempai!"

"Don't worry," Ritsuko said as she typed furiously, "I should have one whole second to spare."

Most people would have responded to that statement with incredulousness, but Maya wasn't most people. The former technician's faith in the scientist was so powerful that the blonde's words actually comforted her.

"Six…five…four…"

"Sakura!" Ritsuko shouted. "Now!"

Both women stabbed the enter key on their respective keyboards at once, just as the countdown reached two seconds.

There was a long, terrible pause in the command center as everyone waited to see whether Ritsuko had succeeded or not. Everyone held their breath, as though afraid to make the slightest sound.

"Self destruct was cancelled by the artificial intelligence," the MAGI announced. "All systems returning to normal modes."

Cheers erupted from the command center, while Ritsuko simply leaned her head back and sighed in relief.

"You did it, sempai!" Maya exclaimed joyously. "I knew you would!"

Ritsuko managed to smile back at her former assistant and nod. "Looks like I did," she said, "with a little help from mother."

Maya arched an eyebrow, and Ritsuko smiled.

"I hated my mother as a woman, which is what Casper is," Ritsuko said, placing a hand against once of the panels near the exposed brain. "But…I have to admit, her usual unwillingness to surrender no matter what served us well today."

Meanwhile, out on the Geofront floor, three naked and miserable Children sat in their plugs, waiting for rescue.

* * *

_Three weeks later…_

It was a fortunate thing that Shinji Ikari could be so oblivious, especially when he was listening to music with his SDAT. If he hadn't been so dead to the world, he would have noticed that Misao had been staring at him for the last twenty minutes or so.

She was worried about him. He had had to endure Unit Zero going berserk on him only a few days ago, during a cross compatibility experiment gone terribly wrong, and now the anniversary of his mother's death was the next day. It seemed as if fate was intent on kicking Shinji in the face lately, even more so than usual.

She wanted to accompany him to Yui's grave, since she suspected Gendo would provide as much emotional support to his son on the upcoming somber occasion as a rabid wolverine.

Yet Misao was acutely aware of the fact that going with someone to visit their ancestor's grave was a very significant thing in Japanese culture. She didn't want to cajole Shinji into taking her along if he didn't want her there.

If she found herself in such a situation with most people, she would just ask and abide by whatever the person she was asking to join decided. But since she was dealing with Shinji, she wasn't quite sure what to do.

Shinji might agree to let her come with him even if didn't want her there; the Third Child had difficulty doing anything that would displease anyone, especially when it came to people he cared about, she knew.

"What's with you two?"

Misao jumped, turning to see that Asuka had entered the apartment without her noticing. Shinji didn't move, either not hearing the Second Child or choosing not to.

"The anniversary of Shinji-kun's mother's death is tomorrow," Misao explained. "He and his father are going to visit her grave."

Asuka shrugged, clearly not caring about her perceived rival's problems. "So what's your problem?"

"I'm worried about him," Misao grumbled.

"I don't see what the big deal is," Asuka said, annoyed to see people babying the Third Child as usual. "The baka can play nice with the Commander for an hour, even if he hates him."

"Shinji doesn't hate Commander Ikari. That's the problem," Misao sighed.

"Whatever," Asuka said. "Hey, can I borrow your lavender perfume? I have a date tomorrow."

"You have a date? With who?" Misao asked.

"Some friend of Hikari's sister," Asuka answered. "So, can I use the perfume?"

"No, that stuff's not for kids," Misao replied without thinking.

Asuka snorted derisively. "So I guess you haven't used it since that little incident with Unit One that made you my age?"

"For your information, I haven't," Misao replied, not entirely sure if she was telling the truth or not but unwilling to concede anything to the redhead.

"Fine," Asuka grumbled, heading to her room.

With the Second Child out of sight and out of mind, Misao went back to silently observing Shinji.

_This is insane!_ She thought suddenly, feeling tired of indecisively staring at him.

She went over to the Third Child and gently nudged him. Shinji quickly pressed pause on his SDAT and removed the ear buds. "Yes?"

"Shinji-kun, would you like me to go with you when you visit the cemetery tomorrow?" she asked.

He blinked, surprised by the offer. "I thought you had to go to a wedding tomorrow."

She smiled. "No, I was _invited_ to a wedding tomorrow, but Ritsuko will be making my excuses to the happy couple for me. I can't very well go looking like a teenager now can I, silly boy?"

"I guess not," Shinji said sheepishly.

"So?" Misao asked. "Do you want me to go with you? I won't be insulted if you say no." She added.

"I…I think I would like that," Shinji said.

The words came slowly and uncertainly, but Misao decided that it was good enough for her.

* * *

When Kaji arrived at the wedding reception, he had thoughts about what he had learned about the Marduk Institute going through his mind. However, by the time he found the table where Ritsuko was seated, thoughts of a more personal nature had taken over.

"Hello, Rits," he greeted, putting up a facade of cheerfulness. "You look lovely today."

The blonde favored her old friend with a small, wry smile. "Thank you, Kaji," she said, deciding not to comment on how sloppy knotted his tie was. "You know, while there is such a thing as being fashionably late, I do believe you overdid it just a tad."

Kaji shrugged. "I doubt the happy couple even noticed I wasn't at ceremony," he said. "I was only friends with Yumi through Katsuragi, after all. Speaking of which, how did the bride take her absence?"

"She was disappointed, but what was to be done? After all, Misato can't come running back from China for every occasion. We've been invited to so many weddings, lately, after all." Ritsuko shrugged, eyes twinkling slightly.

Kaji grunted in response, becoming pensive as he stared into the small glass of champagne in front of him. He had always hated champagne, it was too bubbly and fruity in his opinion, but he couldn't count the number of times he'd drank it. Champagne was a romantic drink, after all, and as a consummate lady's man, he found himself toasting with it often.

"I hope they're very happy," he said softly, looking out at the dance floor, where the groom was skillfully spinning the bride.

"You miss her, don't you?" Ritsuko asked, both of them knowing quite well that she wasn't referring to Yumi.

"Yes," Kaji confessed. "I barely even see her anymore, and when I do, the other pilots are usually around, which means—"

"Asuka," Ritsuko finished for him.

He grinned wryly. "Yeah," he said. "Not that I would try to start anything, not after what happened to her. But still…"

"You had to have known it would possible that you'd get here and find Misato would want nothing to do with you," Ritsuko said.

"Of course," Kaji replied. "I didn't believe that she'd just been waiting for me to come and win her back ever since she left me, but what happened was just so…unexpected."

"I don't see how it's functionally any different from coming to Japan and find that, say, Misato was happily married," Ritsuko said.

Kaji smiled slightly, knowing that the scientist tended to think of things in terms of binary code sometimes. Either it was a one or a zero, and there was no room in between.

"I guess I braced myself for finding out there was another man," Kaji said. "What happened, though, was something I couldn't possibly have expected. Besides, even if there had been another man, I still could have gone out for a drink with her, even if it meant having to tolerate him tagging along."

"You would have stolen her away from this hypothetical man, wouldn't you?" Ritsuko asked.

"It would have been a distinct possibility," Kaji admitted with a wry grin. "But enough of all this sad stuff. This is a wedding, not a funeral. Would you like to dance, Rits?" he asked, extending a hand to her.

"Only if you promise to be thinking about _me_ while we're at it," Ritsuko said, taking the offered hand.

"I'll do my best," Kaji chuckled.

So the duo got out on the floor and danced, Ritsuko with an old college friend, Kaji with his memories.

* * *

Part of Misao was regretting offering to accompany Shinji by the time the cemetery came into view. The Third Child seemed to be shrouded in a cloud of the blackest gloom, one that Misao was feeling the full effects of as she walked next to him.

Misao ordered that part of her to shut up and reminded herself that she wasn't there for her own sake; she was there purely for his benefit.

"What ever happened to your mother?" Shinji asked.

Misao was caught off guard by the question; Shinji had barely said a word since they'd left the apartment that morning. "My mother?"

"Yeah, you told me about what happened to your father but not your mother. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," he quickly added.

"No, it's okay," Misao said. "My mother was killed by the tsunami that resulted from Second Impact."

"I see. Sorry I brought it up," Shinji said softly.

"It's okay," Misao replied. "Memories of my mother don't hurt as much as those of my father. It's kind of strange when you think about it, since I was much closer with her than I was with Dad. I guess it's because there wasn't anything left unsaid between Mom and me."

Shinji nodded and made no reply. After a few more paces, Misao spoke up. "How did she die? Your mother?"

"Some kind of accident," Shinji replied, frowning slightly. "I don't know the details, since I was only four at the time, and Father's never explained everything to me. I don't…I don't even remember what she looked like. I don't have any pictures."

Misao put a hand on his shoulder. "Anyone would have forgotten that. Most people can barely remember anything from when they were that young," she said. "It doesn't make you a bad son."

"Yeah," Shinji said quietly.

Misao felt her heart breaking, just knowing that Shinji didn't really believe that. The Fourth Child silently cursed whatever deity had seen fit to heap so much misery upon her best friend.

The two reached the cemetery, finding that the ground was dry, dusty, and utterly devoid of vegetation. It was like death had such a powerful hold over this place that nothing, not even plants, could be allowed flourish here. Misao shivered slightly as they walked among the gravestones, feeling that she was trespassing, simply because she was alive in this home of the dead.

She was glad that her parents had no such memorials. When she had come out of catatonic state, already nearly an adult, Misao had arranged for a funeral ceremony to be conducted by the sea. Since both of them lay in the ocean (technically in the same grave, but still leagues apart, which Misao had always felt was bitterly appropriate given their dysfunctional marriage), she had felt it was only right for them to be officially buried at sea.

She had been the only one who'd attended that ceremony, since all her parents' friends had been dead and she didn't have any, having just awoken from her years long hibernation. Afterwards she'd gotten completely and totally smashed for the first time in her life and had later decided, upon reflection, that it was probably a good thing that there was no empty tomb for her to visit.

The tall, thin figure of Gendo Ikari came into view, looking even more grim than usual. Shinji slowed and stopped before reaching him and hesitated. For a moment, Misao thought he was contemplating fleeing from this place.

Then he turned to her and said, "Would you wait here for a moment, please?"

Misao nodded, relieved that he wasn't about to run away and actually rather glad that he was setting a boundary for her. With a quiet word of thanks, Shinji walked over toward Gendo and the headstone he was looking down at.

Shinji probably assumed that Misao wasn't close enough to hear anything they said, and Gendo didn't even seem to realize she was there, so fixated upon the grave was he. When the father spoke, however, she was able to pick it up easily, thanks to the oppressive silence of the cemetery.

"It's been three years since we last came here together," Gendo said.

"I ran away then, and I haven't been back until now," Shinji confessed, kneeling down by the grave and placing a bouquet of white flowers that he'd brought before it. "It just hasn't sunk in that mother is resting here. I don't even remember her face."

"Man survives by forgetting his memories," Gendo commented, "but there are some things a man should never forget. Yui taught me about those things. I come here to confirm that."

"You don't have any pictures of her?" Shinji asked, faint traces of both hope and accusation mingling in his voice.

"None. This grave as well is just decoration. There is no body here," Gendo said.

"So my old guardian was right," Shinji said. "You threw them all away."

"I keep everything in my heart. That is enough for now," Gendo said, and if Misao hadn't known better, she would have thought that Gendo was offended by the implications of his son's statement.

A VTOL suddenly descended from the sky, its engines creating terrific gusts and kicking great clouds of dust. It landed gently on the closest patch of empty ground it could to Gendo it could find.

Misao blinked, wondering at the exit the man chose to make. She had never been very religious, wearing her father's cross only because it was all she had left of him, but bringing something so noisy into this place seemed nothing short of heretical.

"It's time, I'm leaving now," Gendo announced.

Shinji only hesitated a moment before calling out to his father. "Um, I'm glad I got to talk to you today."

"I see," was Gendo's only response before he climbed into the VTOL.

Misao felt hot rage burning within her as the plane took off, soon disappearing from view. It would have cost the man nothing to tell his son that he, too, had been glad to speak with him, but he hadn't. After everything Shinji had done and suffered through, much of it because of his father, Gendo couldn't even muster a platitude in way of repayment. It sickened her.

Shinji beckoned her over, and Misao went over as quickly as she could without feeling like she was committing some kind of act of blasphemy. The cemetery didn't seem like a place to run in.

"Shinji-kun…" Misao began, but found that she had no idea what to say to him.

Shinji gave her a small, sad smile. "Misao, this is my mother. Mother, this is my best friend, Misao."

She smiled back at him, and for a few minutes the two just stood there, silently looking at the grave.

"I guess there was nothing left unsaid between my mother and me, either," Shinji finally spoke. "Let's go home."

Misao nodded and the two left the cemetery, slowly walking toward the train station.

"So, wanna go…"

Misao trailed off, realizing that the words "get drunk" had been on the tip of her tongue. She was appalled at how ingrained this response to sadness was within her, even now. Apparently, old habits really did die hard.

She realized that Shinji was giving her a curious look and blurted out the first alternative suggestion that came to mind. "Uh, wanna go get some ice cream?"

Misao felt absurd the moment the words passed her lips, realizing that going to get ice cream together could very easily be construed as a date. It also seemed ridiculously inappropriate after what had just happened.

Fortunately, Shinji didn't seem to pick up on any unintended, romantic implications of her offer, nor did he get offended. Instead he just shook his head and said, "No, thank you. I'd rather just go back to the apartment."

She nodded. "Of course."

"Misao?" he said.

"Yes, Shinji-kun?"

"Thank you," he said. "For coming with me."

She smiled, deciding that this whole ordeal had been worth it. "You're welcome, Shinji-kun."

* * *

The moment they got back in the apartment, Misao went straight to her room to change. Shinji wasn't surprised; she had gone to the cemetery in a dark blue dress that was far more subdued than any other piece of clothing he'd ever seen her wear. He hadn't even realized that she'd owned such a thing, which was quite the trick. After all, to the best of his knowledge, Misao had never gone shopping for clothing since her transformation without dragging him along to carry her bags.

Regardless of where she'd gotten it from, he had been touched that she would so violate her personal dress code for a visit to his mother's grave.

Feeling somewhat at loose ends, Shinji looked around the kitchen. Pen-Pen was nowhere to be seen, presumably napping in his fridge, and Asuka was likewise absent.

_Probably hasn't gotten back from her date yet,_ Shinji thought.

He knew that he should get to work on dinner, but what he really wanted to do was retrieve the one thing he had of his mother. He always found himself yearning for it on this day, and this year was obviously no exception.

_I've barely practiced at all since I came to Tokyo-3, _Shinji mused as he headed to room.

The Third Child removed his old but well cared for cello from its case and brought the instrument into the kitchen with him. Taking the bow in one hand, he slowly began to coax music from its strings, finding to his satisfaction that very little of his skill had deserted him since he'd been plunged into war.

He didn't even notice it when Misao emerged, now clad in denim shorts and a tank top.

She didn't do anything to alert him to her presence, instead allowing the low, doleful notes to wash over her. Misao, a self proclaimed rock and roller, normally hated any music that was remotely classical, and what Shinji was playing certainly qualified as that. However, there was something powerful and undeniable in his music that riveted her.

Or perhaps it was the look on his face. It was a look of concentration, unsurprisingly, but there was something else there in Shinji Ikari's delicate, almost feminine features. He wasn't exactly happy, but he did look at peace with himself as he played, far more so than he usually was.

_And I barely even knew he had an instrument,_ Misao thought, recalling how she'd seen the large cello case when he'd moved in but had never given it much thought.

Misao remembered a guy she'd dated briefly in college, prior to meeting Kaji, who had said he was a musician. He was a guitarist who liked to wax philosophical about music, going on about its beauty and power and how he felt it was a vital part of him.

She had soon found that he wasn't very good and rarely practiced, eventually realizing that the whole idealistic musician persona was just something he'd constructed to try and impress women, because he couldn't afford a flashy car. Yet now she found herself remembering something he'd said to her once while he was pretending to be deep: "I feel more like myself when I'm making music."

It had been absolute bunk when he'd said it about himself, but she thought it might well be true in Shinji's case.

Misao shifted her weight slightly, and the old floorboards creaked beneath her. Shinji's cello let out a small screech as he started slightly.

"Oh, Misao," he said, looking a little embarrassed. "I didn't realize you were there. I can stop if you don't like it."

"No, no," Misao said, pulling up a chair by Shinji. "I like it. It's nice. Please, keep going."

"You actually like this?" he asked, seeming surprised and rather amused.

"Yeah," Misao answered. "Why are you so shocked?"

He shrugged. "You just…don't seem like the type who would like the cello, that's all."

"I'm usually not, but you're very good," Misao said.

He smiled and was about to say something when the door to the apartment suddenly opened, and Asuka tromped in.

"Hello, Asuka," Shinji said.

"You're back early," Misao commented.

"My blind date was terrifically boring," the Second Child said brusquely. "He actually took me to an amusement park."

"Did he try to feel you up on the Ferris wheel?" Misao asked with a smirk.

"He might have, if I hadn't left while he was waiting on line for tickets to it," Asuka said. "Anyway, I've already eaten, so don't cook dinner for me."

With that, the Second Child strode off toward the hallway and disappeared into her room. Shinji and Misao traded glances before giving the brief encounter a small, mutual shrug.

"Please, play," Misao said, gesturing to the cello.

With a small smile on his face, Shinji did.

* * *

Author's Notes: As more of you, dear reviewers, decided that you wanted me to keep in at least certain bits of the chapters I was considering skipping, I sat down and wrote this. It skips episode 14, since that was mostly a clip show and what wasn't a rehash (Unit Zero going berserk with Shinji inside and Misato being furious at Ritsuko afterwards) would have gone almost exactly the same way here.

So yeah, a little humor, a little Maya/Ritsuko bonding, and some angst. I hope you enjoyed.

Animefan29, morbid that line might have been, but we're nearing the point where everything went straight to hell in canon. Shinji's better equipped to deal with it here, but there's no way the coming trials can be easy for him or the other pilots.

Orionpax09, I admit the whole thing with Maya staying and fighting last chapter never quite sat right with me, but I couldn't let the Angel blow up Tokyo-3. I briefly considered having it so Maya had lost a loved one in Second Impact as well, but that felt like it would've been turning Maya into Misato-lite.

NefCanuck, while I agree that Asuka wouldn't just quietly tolerate being second best to anyone (this chapter notwithstanding, since she has so little presence in it), I can't see her trying to seduce Shinji to wreck things between him and Misao. Asuka's not much a schemer; she doesn't try to subtly manipulate people much and when she does, she usually screws it up. In-your-face aggression has always seemed to be more her style.

Ryousanki, yes, it would have made things far less complicated if our lovebirds had kissed, but this is Eva. It's supposed to be complicated. :P

Aedan, I've always assumed that Shinji was in pain from jumping into the volcano, but the heroism of the act was ironically never the point of that event, at least, so it seemed to me. In cannon I think the point was showing the viewer that yes, Shinji actually managed to impress Asuka, not showing the viewer that Shinji had actually done something truly gallant and badass for once. In this fic, it was about Shinji fixing the results of Misao's overzealousness.

As always, thanks to all my readers and reviewers.

* * *

Omakes

Music is not always the answer

Meanwhile, out on the Geofront floor, three naked and miserable Children sat in their plugs, waiting for rescue.

"What in the world is going on out there?" Shinji wondered aloud.

"Damn it!" Asuka cursed. "I can't go anywhere naked! Somebody hurry up and help me!"

There was a long pause, then…

"Wanna do a sing along to pass the time?" Misao called to her fellow pilots.

"No!" Asuka, Shinji, and even Rei shouted in unison, all of them having already been subjected to what Misao classified as singing several times now.

"Aw, c'mon, it'll be fun!" Misao urged.

All that answered her was stony silence.

Not deterred in the least, Misao decided that _she_ wasn't just going to sit around feeling awkward and bored for hours.

"I told the witch doctor I was in love you!" she belted out the lyrics, causing her fellow pilots to wince. "And then the witch doctor he told me what do! He said that Oo, Ee, Oo, Ah, Ah! Ting! Tang! Walla walla, bing bang! Oo, Ee, Oo, Ah, Ah! Ting! Tang! Walla walla, bing bang!"

Asuka let out a wordless scream of fury as her already minimal supply of patience completely ran out. Not giving a thought to modesty, the Second Child opened her plug's hatch and stormed over to Misao's plug. She opened it and roughly pulled the surprised Fourth Child out.

"Shut up!" Asuka roared, even as the two began to exchange frantic blows.

Neither of them noticed that Shinji had opened his own plug's hatch just a crack and was looking out at them. "Oh my god," he whispered, as he watched two of the hottest girls he knew clash with one another. "_Naked_ catfight. This is the single greatest day of my life."

* * *

Most impressive

Taking a deep breath, Shinji pressed the button and walked out into the hall at a quick pace, barely able to keep himself from sprinting to the privacy of the simulation plug.

"Wow, Shinji-kun, have you been working out?" Misao called.

"_What?!"_ Shinji squawked, whirling around without thinking about it, even as he broke out into a full body blush.

He saw the three female pilots, all of whom were staring at him with wide eyes.

"Woah…" breathed Asuka, who was most assuredly _not_ looking anywhere near his face.

"Ikari-kun seems to be…far above average for a male his age," Rei commented to no one in particular, her cheeks bright pink. "Very far…"

"Wow, Shinji-kun, you sure have grown since the penguin and toothpicks incident," Misao said, also blushing heavily.

Asuka and perhaps even Rei might have asked what the "penguin and toothpicks incident" was, had circumstances been different. As it was, however, all three female pilots just slammed on the buttons to move aside the frosted glass screens between themselves and the lone boy and then charged at him.

Shinji let out a small "eep!" as he was tackled to the floor by the three ladies.

* * *

Meanwhile, up in the Commander's lair, Gendo and Fuyutski were observing with the aid of a hidden camera that had _not_ been turned off in deference to the pilots' privacy.

"Most impressive," Gendo said. "The Third Child may be a greater threat to the scenario than I predicted. After all, I didn't engage in my first four-way until I was three years older than him."

Fuyutski rolled his eyes. _If Ikari ever slept with three women at once without paying them first, I'll offer up my soul to the next EVA that needs one._

"Can you turn that off?" Fuyutski grumbled. "I already feel guilty enough about helping you bring about Third Impact. I don't need you to make me feel like a dirty old man, too!"


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

Chapter Twelve: **Need/Darkness**

There were a lot of negative things about being an EVA pilot. The incredible danger of fighting the Angels, the fact that you were expected to command giant biomechanical war machines that even the people who made them didn't claim to fully understand, and working for a shadowy organization with its own, equally shadowy agenda were definitely the worst things.

But there were more mundane downsides as well, such as how the training regimen tended to play merry hell with the pilots' schedules. Of these more humdrum negatives, Shinji decided that the harmonics tests were easily the worst, and this decision certainly wasn't being challenged at the moment.

"Asuka," Dr. Akagi said, studying a clipboard with the test results on it, "Shinji's synchronization ratio now surpasses yours by just over 15 points. You're going to have to work if you want to reclaim the top spot."

Shinji, Misao, and Maya all winced slightly as they watched the Second Child begin to boil in response to Akagi's less than sensitive evaluation. With the apparent exception of Ritsuko herself, nobody thought for even a moment that Asuka _wasn't_ giving her attempts at reclaiming the top spot everything she had.

"Asuka…" Shinji began.

"Save it, Third Child," Asuka snapped, in no mood to have her temper cooled by a few well chosen words from Shinji. "I'll just have to prove that you're not _perfect_ next time!"

The amount of sheer venom dripping from her words was enough to cause even Akagi, who normally did her best to ignore the squabbles among the pilots, to arch an eyebrow.

Before anyone could say anything to try and defuse the situation, Asuka stormed out, pent up rage and frustration apparent in her every movement.

Shinji sighed as he watched her go. Part of him wanted to stop trying so hard at EVA piloting, just to lessen the friction between himself and Asuka that grew as the gap between their sync ratios continued to widen. However, Misao's sync ratio was going up almost as fast as his own. He still had a sizeable lead on her, but he wasn't about to commit himself to a nerve-wracking balancing act to both keep Asuka happy and Misao out of Unit One.

"The rest of you are dismissed," Maya said tiredly, waving them off.

The three remaining pilots nodded and left the test plug control room, heading for their locker rooms.

"Asuka's going to be _impossible_ to deal with when we get back home," Shinji commented to Misao once they were out in the hall.

"Yeah," Misao agreed, looking weary and amused at once, "but considering the type of crap we have to deal with, I think a pissed off Asuka shouldn't rank _that_ high on our scale of annoyances."

Shinji smiled despite himself. "True," he admitted. "After all, it's not like Asuka is going to kill us…I hope. I'd rather have to deal with an angry Asuka than an Angel."

The Third Child would later blame himself for jinxing them when a strange, dark shadow invaded Tokyo-3 not twenty-four hours later.

* * *

"You're late, Maya," Ritsuko chided as Maya burst into the command center amid the blare of emergency klaxons.

"Sorry, sempai," Maya said, slightly out of breath from her run to the bridge. "What's going on? The Fuji observation center—"

"Never detected it," Aoba broke in. "It just suddenly appeared right above us!"

"The pattern is orange, no AT field detected," Makoto added.

"What is this thing?" Maya asked, staring at the huge white and black striped sphere on the main screen. "Some new kind of Angel?"

"Unknown," Sakura said. "The MAGI are withholding their judgment, pending further data."

"Ugh, and the Commanders are both out of Japan again," Maya groaned. "Let me guess, this one's jamming our wireless communications just like the Tenth Angel did."

"You got it," Aoba said. "There's no way to contact anyone outside the city, short of sending a carrier pigeon."

"And I think we're all out of those," Sakura put in sardonically.

"Damn," Maya cursed. "Get the EVA's ready for launch. Have the Children get suited up and ready for sortie the moment they arrive, except for the Fourth. Send her up here."

"Yes, ma'am!" her subordinates chorused.

* * *

Shinji had to admit he was surprised how stealthy the EVA Units could be when the pilots really put their minds to it. Normally, the name of the game was to go in with guns blazing and hope that the Angel didn't have any nasty tricks up its nonexistent sleeve, even though they usually did.

But apparently this Angel was unusual enough to give NERV pause, and now the three EVA Units were sneaking through the city as they observed it.

"Are you all reading me?" Maya asked over the radio. "We've sent you all the data we have on this Angel. Yes, I realize it isn't much. Approach it with extreme caution and try to learn what it's capable of. If you can, lure it outside of the city so we can engage it there. Watch each other's backs, got it?"

"Roger," Shinji confirmed, not entirely sure why he was whispering but keeping his voice down nonetheless.

Asuka didn't respond right away, glancing at a small display on her cockpit screen that showed the EVA Units' positions relative to the Angel. She grinned slightly as she noted that her Unit Two was the closest.

"I'll take point on this one," Asuka proclaimed, hefting the progressive axe Unit Two held.

"That isn't your call, Pilot Soryu," Maya said sternly.

"Damn it, Asuka!" Misao snapped from her position next to Maya. "Remember what happened the last time you ignored procedures?!"

"That was then and this is now," Asuka said defiantly. "I'm going to prove that I'm the best EVA pilot, despite what the tests say."

"Is that what this is about?" Shinji demanded. "Asuka, nobody's been saying that I'm a better pilot than you. Not even me!"

The redhead frowned darkly. That was true enough. Every time they had a sync test now, Shinji would try and dismiss his victory. He would bring up her superior leadership abilities, or the fact that she was easily the most heavily trained of the group. That he had the highest sync ratio and the largest number of kills were immaterial, he argued. Mere quirks of Evangelion and his happening to be in the right place at the right time, he claimed.

Asuka hated it. She hated how he wasn't basking in the glory of being the top pilot, as she once had. Hated it because she couldn't easily lash out at him when he tried to sooth her ego, instead of boasting about his achievements. Hated it because it made her think he pitied her, and she was too proud to tolerate anyone's pity.

She wanted—no, she _needed_—this kill.

"This thing has no AT field," Asuka said arrogantly. "It'll be a piece of cake. Shinji, Wondergirl, just watch and be amazed."

She snapped off her transmitter after that.

Shinji sighed. "Unit One will back up Unit Two."

"Unit Zero will back up as well," Rei added.

On the bridge, Maya sighed and ran a hand down her face. "I was afraid something like this would happen soon," she lamented.

"You'll have to chew her out when she gets back," Misao said.

Maya nodded. "Yeah, I know," she sighed. "I was going to put her in the point position anyway, too."

"Honestly, Misao, do you allow her such liberties at home?" Ritsuko asked, amused.

"This coming from our deadbeat excuse for a guardian!" Misao snapped.

Ritsuko straightened slightly, like a cat arching its back and puffing out its fur in response to a threat. "Try and keep those hormones in check, Pilot Katsuragi," she chided, before turning back to her screens.

Misao knew she had left her old friend genuinely taken aback, but at the moment, she found that she really didn't care.

* * *

"Asuka, please, be careful," Shinji practically begged over the radio.

The Third Child's sense of impending doom was going off in a way it hadn't for months now. He tried to tell himself it was all in his head, but he was only partially successful in calming himself down.

"Shut up, Third," Asuka grumbled, forgetting that she'd switched off her transmitter as she stared up at the Angel.

The Second Child felt her entire body tingling with extreme anticipation. She was a viper, just waiting to strike, practically bursting with barely restrained, lethal energy.

_Let's go, Asuka,_ she thought as the Angel lazily floated by her. _Now or never. Prove who you are._

Unit Two's right shoulder pylon opened up and several deadly metal spikes flew out of a launcher concealed inside. Asuka grinned savagely, immediately able to tell that her aim had been true. The wicked spears of metal impaled the Angel—

Only to have the sphere wink out of existence a second later.

* * *

"It vanished!" Ritsuko exclaimed, as klaxons went off everywhere and most of the screens in the command center were flooded with warning messages and fresh data readouts from the MAGI.

"Status?" Maya barked, trying to keep her composure.

"Pattern blue! Angel confirmed!" Hyuga said.

Outside, the ground beneath Unit Two suddenly became as black as midnight, and the Second Child's eyes widened as what was supposed to be the glorious victory she'd dreamed about suddenly turned into a living nightmare.

"What!? A shadow?!" Asuka exclaimed, trying to keep panic at bay and not completely succeeding.

Unit Two's feet began to sink into the inky darkness and Asuka screamed. The Second Child raised her progressive axe and swung downwards, only to have the weapon, and her EVA's hands, get stuck in the shadow as well.

Back in the command center, the situation had escalated from chaos to near pandemonium.

"Eject the plug! Get her out of there!" Maya yelled.

"No response!" Sakura replied. "The auto ejection system isn't functioning!"

"No!" Asuka shouted, struggling violently to escape the Angel's hold. "I won't lose! Damn you, I won't!"

For all her efforts, she might well have been resisting the pull of quicksand. EVA Two was pulled beneath the dark shadow, her defiant cries terminating abruptly as it was completely consumed.

* * *

"Oh, shit!" Shinji exclaimed as he felt Unit One begin to sink into the same void that had claimed Asuka.

Unlike Rei, Shinji had managed to get close enough to the Angel that when Asuka made her ill advised attack, he was caught at the edge of the shadow.

Reflexively, the Third Child emptied the standard EVA pistol Unit One was carrying into the darkness at its feet, to no effect. He screamed as he tried to step out of the Angel and found his feet stuck in it. Soon, Unit One had sunk to its knees.

Shinji felt the lower half of his own legs growing cold and nearly numb in sympathy with Unit One, and he felt panic threatening to overwhelm him. He did not want to get swallowed by that horrible darkness. He did _not_.

"Shinji! Withdraw! Get out of there!" Maya ordered.

"I can't!" Shinji yelled. "I'm caught!"

"Ikari."

Shinji looked up and saw Unit Zero standing nearby, just outside the edge of the shadow, holding its hand out to him. He wasted no time grabbing onto it and trying to pull himself out, as Rei put all of Unit Zero's considerable strength into achieving the same end.

It wasn't enough. With EVA Units straining as hard as their pilots could make them, they were only able to stop Unit One's slow descent into the shadow, not reverse it.

"Come on, you guys!" Misao urged. "Pull!"

"We are!" Shinji and Rei snapped in unison.

_Sheesh, you'd think they were brother and sister or something,_ Misao thought briefly.

"Shinji! Rei! Just hang on!" Maya ordered. "Emergency recall of Unit Zero! Retract the umbilical cable! Do it now! I don't care what gets damaged in the process!"

In the faux building that the blue EVA's power cable came from, a huge motor kicked into action, attempting to 'reel in' Unit Zero. In this situation, it was able to give only one sharp tug before its massive engines burned out against the resistance.

It proved enough. Unit Zero was jerked backwards several hundred meters, pulling Unit One with it and out of the shadow. The two EVA's collapsed in a heap together just outside the danger zone.

"Shinji! Rei! Retreat! Get out of there!" Maya commanded.

"But what about Asuka?" Shinji asked as he urged Unit One to its feet. "She's still in there."

_Only Shinji would want to reengage an enemy like this for someone who's been trying to make his life hell for so long,_ Misao thought, feeling simultaneously exasperated and proud of him.

"This is a direct order," Maya sighed, clearly not liking it any more than the pilots. "Withdraw."

* * *

After consuming Asuka and Unit Two, the Twelfth Angel stopped and held its position, abandoning even the leisurely pace it had been moving at before the EVA Units engaged it.

NERV collectively thanked whatever deities might be looking out for them for small favors and set about the extensive task of gathering data on the Angel and trying to analyze it.

They also collectively tried to ignore the possibility that the Angel had stopped because it was busy _digesting_ its victim, but that idea was never far from the thoughts of the personnel who were working feverishly against the clock.

"Major Ibuki must feel terrible," Sakura said softly as she rode with Ritsuko in a helicopter over the Angel's shadow.

"Yes," Ritsuko agreed. "They reeled in Unit Two's umbilical, but the EVA wasn't attached to it any longer. Asuka is too heavily trained to spend her battery power groping around in the dark. She'll switch to minimal life support mode. That'll give her sixteen hours. After that…"

"I know," Sakura whispered, not wanting her boss to say it.

* * *

"Asuka might've been a pain in the ass at times, but she's a good kid at heart," Misao said as she paced about the hastily erected command post on the surface of the city. "She doesn't deserve to die."

"If only I'd let her beat me in the sync tests, this might not have happened," Shinji said quietly.

He started as Misao grabbed hold of the material of his plug suit and pulled him forward so their faces were mere centimeters apart. "Don't you _dare_ blame yourself for this, Shinji-kun," she hissed.

Shinji blinked in confusion. "Misao?"

"It is Asuka's fault that she went off all half cocked and is in this predicament now," Misao said sternly. "No one else's. Your performance in those sync tests was you working to save the world to the best of your ability. They are not something you should be ashamed of. Asuka's reaction to your scores was _her_ problem, not yours."

Misao let go of Shinji's plug suit. "I want to rescue Asuka as much as you," she said in a much quieter tone. "But feeling responsible for what happened won't help anything, Shinji-kun. You've already endured so much. There's no need for you to heap more onto yourself."

Shinji just nodded, still slightly overwhelmed by his friend's actions. Misao sighed. The last thing Shinji needed was survivor's guilt, which she feared he might have, if he didn't stop kicking himself over what Asuka had gotten herself into.

Still, Misao couldn't help but feel a little guilty herself. Not for what had happened to Asuka, but because her fear for the Second Child was eclipsed by her relief that the Angel had not claimed Shinji as well. She was supposed to be guardian to both teenagers, her constant ribbing of Ritsuko notwithstanding, but it was obvious which one she cared about more.

"Rei?" Shinji said. "Where's Maya?"

"Major Ibuki is currently with Dr. Akagi, attempting to understand the nature of the Angel and devise a method of rescuing Pilot Soryu," Rei answered.

"Once a scientist, always a scientist, I suppose," Misao said. "Hopefully they'll manage to come up with something before time is up."

* * *

Twelve hours. Twelve hours of sitting around and doing absolutely nothing.

Asuka _hated_ sitting around and doing nothing, especially when there was a problem to solve or an enemy to slay; it was just in her nature.

"Mein Gott, is this really how the life of the Great Asuka Langley Soryu will end?" she whispered to herself.

Glorious death in combat, she could see. Valiant self sacrifice to save the human race, she could see. A quiet end at the age of 97, while surrounded by her friends and admirers, she could see. Suffocating in oxygen-depleted LCL after being swallowed alive by an Angel?

No. No way in hell. The Great Asuka Langley couldn't possibly die so young and in such an inglorious fashion.

_Great Asuka Langley Soryu my ass,_ an evil little voice whispered in her mind. _You had the training and the superior EVA and you _still_ got showed up by a weak, stupid pervert time and again. There's nothing great about you. You're pathetic!_

"Shut up!" Asuka growled.

Mercifully, the voice retreated, for the moment, anyway. It would be back. There was nothing in the plug to keep her doubts and inner demons at bay.

The Second Child sighed. _I'm inside a damn _Angel_ right now, and all I have to do is try to keep myself from thinking about how I'd kill for a frankfurter about now._

* * *

"No, sempai, I won't accept this," Maya said stubbornly. "There _has_ to be a way to rescue the pilot."

Ritsuko sighed. "I'm sure there is, Maya. But we only have…" she checked her wristwatch, "less than two hours to find it. Unless one of us has an epiphany right now, it's simply not going to happen."

Maya grabbed a marker and turned toward the white board. "Look," she said, writing equations on the board. "The Sea of Dirac created by this Angel is made by an inverted AT field. If we send one of the other EVA's into it and have it spread its AT field to maximum, it may neutralize the Angel's inverted AT field and release them."

Ritsuko looked incredulously at the equations Maya had written in an attempt to prove her point. There were more unknown variables in it than numbers.

"Listen to yourself, Maya!" Ritsuko exclaimed, more harshly than she'd intended. "You're grasping at straws. Seeing things not because they're there, but because you want to see them! There's absolutely no guarantee that this would work. And even if an EVA could neutralize the inverted AT field, the collapse of the Dirac Sea could destroy the EVA's. I can't let you risk one of our remaining EVA Units on such a crazy rescue operation."

Maya nodded glumly. "The N2 mines, then?" she asked, voice barely more than a whisper.

"It's the most viable option we have," Ritsuko answered grimly. She hesitated for a moment, then added, "I'm sorry, Maya."

"I know," Maya said softly.

* * *

Inside the entry plug of Unit Two, Asuka suddenly jerked out of her light doze and gasped in horror. "The LCL is getting cloudy," she said. "The life support systems are starting to fail."

She put a hand over her mouth in disgust. "Oh Gott, it smells like blood!" she screamed. "Someone let me out of this damned coffin! I hate this place! _I hate it!_"

Frantic, the Second Child attempted futilely to open the entry plug hatch. "I don't wanna die!" she yelled. "Help me! Kaji! Maya! Ikari! Hell, I'd even take help from _Wondergirl_ right now! Please! I don't wanna die!"

* * *

"You're going to blow the shadow up?" Shinji asked, horrified.

Maya nodded, not meeting any of the pilots' eyes. "Yes. The shadow's the real target. The sphere is just the shadow's…shadow."

"But there's no way that Asuka could survive that!" Misao protested. "That much explosive power…she can't generate an AT field to protect herself in life support mode, and we have no way of warning her!"

"I know," Maya said. "Please understand, we've tried to find a better solution, but the Dirac Sea…we could study it for a lifetime and still not fully understand all of the mathematics involved. Finding a way to free Asuka and Unit Two in sixteen hours was simply an impossible task. I'm sorry, we tried. We tried so hard."

The Operations Director was so clearly miserable that neither Shinji nor Misao could be angry with her.

"What do you need us to do?" Shinji asked softly.

* * *

She was on a zeppelin. Asuka knew this because she had seen many such airships during her time in Germany. Her ancestors on her mother's side had invented the things, after all. She had no idea how she'd gotten to this place, but her mind was so fuzzy she didn't even know where she was supposed to be.

Sunset. It had to be sunset. That was the only possible reason why the interior of the zeppelin was filled with blood red light.

_Blood. The smell of LCL,_ the thought flitted through her consciousness for an instant and then was gone like so much dust in the wind.

"What?"

_**"Not what. Who."**_

"Who said that?" she demanded, looking around the empty passenger compartment.

_**"I did. The Great Asuka Langley Soryu."**_

"_I'm_ Asuka Langley Soryu!"

_**"And I'm you. This self incorporates another self. The self has always been composed of two selves."**_

"That's bull!"

_**"Not at all. There is the self which is observed, and the self which observes itself. To expound, there is the Asuka Soryu that exists in your mind, the Asuka Soryu in Ryoji Kaji's mind, the Asuka Soryu in Shinji Ikari's mind, the Asuka Soryu in Misao Katsuragi's mind, the Asuka Soryu in Rei Ayanami's mind, and the Asuka Soryu in Maya Ibuki's mind. Each is a different Asuka Soryu, but each is also a true Asuka Soryu. What you desire is for the Asuka Soryu's in minds of others to be 'Great Asuka Langley Soryu's.'"**_

"I just want people to acknowledge my talents and dedication."

_**"You need others to acknowledge your existence."**_

"Bull! I don't _need _anyone else at all!"

_**"Incorrect. Without the constant praise of others, your self confidence begins to erode. The Asuka Soryu in your mind begins to lose her strength and fall apart, and the other Asuka Soryu's inevitably follow suit. You have broken the covenant you made with yourself."**_

_"I'm going to think for myself and live for myself!"_

"I have NOT broken that promise!" Asuka snarled.

_**"Yes, you have. You live for the praise of others. It is the reason you pilot EVA, and the reason why you have grown to detest Shinji Ikari."**_

"The baka had no business outperforming me! He didn't even have the decency to enjoy being number one!"

_"And yet, despite having laid eyes on an EVA Unit only weeks ago, Shinji Ikari's sync ratio has already exceeded sixty percent."_

_"Let's move out!"_

_"It's not that big a deal, Asuka. I mean, sync ratios aren't everything. My sync ratio could've been 200 and it wouldn't have helped me figure out how to beat that last Angel."_

_**"You have grown to need praise as much as you need water and air. Will you live the rest of your life doing whatever it takes to win enough to sustain you, even if it means doing things which are foolish or that you do not wish to do?"**_

"I don't need the praise of others!" Asuka shrieked.

_**"So long as you continue to deny your failure to keep the promise you made to yourself, you will not be able to initiate change within yourself and truly live for yourself."**_

"Shut up! Just shut up!"

_**"You have thrown up barriers around your heart, sealing out all those who would care for you and help you…"**_

_"I might regret saying this, but I never felt like you owed me anything for what happened at Mount Asuma. I mean, we're supposed to be a team, right? Saving each other every now and then is just all in a day's work. We don't have to keep score or anything."_

_"You're just saying that because you don't want to owe me when I have to save your ass in the future."_

_**"…and yet, at the same time, you have grown to need the kind words of others, and you react with hostility to anyone who you see as taking them from you."**_

_"Well, I'm sure that in the heat of battle, you'll have difficulty keeping up those numbers. So cherish your victory while you can, jerkface!"_

"Stop! Stop! I don't want to hear this!" Asuka yelled, shutting her eyes.

_**"See? You're denying your most hidden pains and needs. No one can live if they need external validation in the form of praise to survive."**_

There was silence, and after a very long moment, Asuka dared to open her eyes and look up.

Sitting across from her was four-year-old version of herself, wearing the exact same dress she had worn on that terrible day.

_**"In particular, I can't,"**_ the young Asuka said.

"Gott damn you, you little bitch! Leave me ALONE!" Asuka screamed.

* * *

The mood inside the mobile command vehicle was somber, to say the least. No one thought that throwing every N2 mine they had at their disposal into the Angel was a good idea, yet they all were at a loss for a better one.

"The entry plug's energy reserves should be reaching their expiration point about now," Makoto reported sadly.

"The plug suit's life support system will be nearing redline," Sakura added softly.

"We'll advance the schedule by twelve minutes," Maya said. "We may only have a snowball's chance in hell of saving the kid, but I want to take it. We've beaten worse odds. I think."

* * *

_"Mama! Please don't stop being my Mom!"_

_"Who is that girl?"_

_"Die with me Asuka."_

_**"You fled from your pain, but failed to overcome it."**_

_"It was suicide."_

_"She thought that doll was her daughter and 'killed' it, too."_

_"The poor child."_

"I don't need her! Just like I don't need anyone else! And I never wanted anyone's pity!"

_"You're an elite pilot, Asuka. Chosen to protect mankind."_

"Let me out!" Asuka sobbed. "Kill me if you have to, but stop doing this to me!"

_**"You're crying. Another vow to yourself broken."**_

"Shut up!"

Her eyes opened slightly, and she was again confronted by the interior of the entry plug and the cloudy LCL.

"Heat system's giving out," she murmured. A red light on her glove began to blink, accompanied by a beeping noise. "The suit's giving out, too. Never thought I'd see this happen. So cold."

She curled up into a fetal position. "I'm so tired," she mumbled to herself. "Of everything. Maybe…maybe dying won't be so bad."

_"No, you must live."_

Asuka's eyes snapped open at the sound of this voice, and she gasped as she saw a ghostly form embracing her. "Mama?" she whispered, disbelieving.

* * *

"Both EVA's are in position and standing by," Aoba reported.

"The pilots report that they're ready to generate AT fields," Sakura added. "Commencing mine drop in sixty seconds."

_We're going to nuke Asuka,_ Shinji thought dourly. _This is so messed up._

Suddenly, the ground began to quake. Impossibly, the shadow, the true Angel, began to crack, ruby liquid bursting forth from the fissures.

"What the hell!?" Shinji exclaimed.

"What's happening?" Maya demanded, turning to Makoto.

"We don't know!" Makoto answered helplessly.

"All our meters and gauges are going off the scale!" Sakura added.

"But we haven't _done_ anything yet!" Ritsuko said, annoyed in the way only a scientist could be that something was happening for no apparent reason.

"Could it be Asuka?" Misao asked hopefully.

"Impossible! Unit Two's power level must be at zero!" Ritsuko said.

"_Something's_ doing it, and it's not us," Maya said. "Tell the bombers to hold off on dropping their payloads!"

Outside, the sphere above the Angel had become completely black. A crack formed along the side, and a single red hand burst out, dripping with blood so dark it was nearly brown.

Everyone sat speechless as Unit Two clawed its way out of the Angel. As it fought its way back into the world of light and air, part of its helmet shattered, allowing the mighty Evangelion to open its jaw and release a fearsome roar that seemed to cause the whole world to tremble. The streets below it were showered in blood as it emerged.

"It's even more monstrous than I believed," Shinji whispered.

"God in Heaven, what kind of monsters have we created?" Ritsuko spoke, eyes glued to the screen showing EVA Two.

The sphere and shadow shattered with a final explosion of blood, and Unit Two leapt to the ground, still drenched in the life fluids of its fallen foe.

* * *

Bird song was the first thing Asuka became aware of as she regained consciousness, and it was how she knew she wasn't dead. There had been no birds in the hell she'd experienced inside the Angel.

She opened her eyes and was greeted by the sight of Shinji and Misao, sitting on either side of her hospital bed. She began to sit up.

"Hey, you're awake!" Misao said happily.

"How do you feel, Asuka?" Shinji asked.

"I feel fine," Asuka answered.

"That's good," Misao said. "Still, the docs want you to take the day off and rest in bed."

"Wundervoll," Asuka said sarcastically. The last thing she wanted to do right now was sit around and do nothing, but she still felt too drain to fight it.

Shinji gave her a small, nervous smile. "Hey, Asuka, uh, the rest of us kind of started this tradition of going to a certain sushi place to celebrate after killing an Angel. Since you killed this one, it wouldn't be right if you didn't come."

_I killed this Angel,_ Asuka thought. _It was all me. So why doesn't it feel like I thought it would?_

"I don't feel like celebrating," Asuka said.

Shinji's face fell, but he nodded. "All right, we understand."

"We'll get out of your hair and let you sleep, now," Misao said.

She and Shinji got up and departed the room. Rei was waiting outside for them, Asuka noted indifferently.

* * *

"Are we going to the sushi restaurant?" Rei asked once they had left Asuka's room.

Misao shook her head. "Asuka doesn't want to go. Since she was the one who killed this Angel, I don't think it would be right for us to go without her again."

Rei nodded, actually looking disappointed.

"Let's go," Misao said. "No point in us hanging around here anymore."

Shinji hesitated before moving to follow Rei and Misao. They had left the door to Asuka's room ajar, and he peered in through the small crack, just able to see the Second Child. She was observing her hands.

"It still smells like blood," he just barely heard her whisper.

_It's happening,_ he thought grimly. _EVA is starting to destroy her. It's a wonder I've managed to last so long._

He shivered. If he had begun to doubt EVA's dark power, he no longer did.

* * *

Author's Notes: Here we have the Twelfth Angel, better known as Evangelion Head Trip #1. Astute readers will note that said head trip was largely an almost line-for-line "Asuka version" of what happened to Shinji in canon. While you _could_ call that laziness (and perhaps not be totally wrong about it, as I had little idea what to do with the old happy fun ball and this seemed like the easiest and most plausible way to handle it), I actually think it's fairly appropriate. Asuka's mental issues are so similar to canon Shinji's that I really don't think her conversation with the Twelfth Angel would be dramatically different.

Anyway, up next is the Thirteenth Angel, and I can assure you that you're _not_ going to want to miss this one, so stay tuned, dear readers.

James Axelrad and Belthasar, yeah, I somehow totally forgot that there would be four pilots stuck out there rather than three.

Saotome Kyuubi, the funny thing is the line that you mentioned was largely just me transcribing something that happened in canon.

As always, thanks to my readers and reviewers.

* * *

Omakes

Off the Wagon?

"Ugh, and the Commanders are both out of Japan again," Maya groaned. "Let me guess, this one's jamming our wireless communications just like the Tenth Angel did."

"You got it," Aoba said. "There's no way to contact anyone outside the city, short of sending a carrier pigeon."

"And I think we're all out of those," Sakura put in sardonically.

"Oh! Wait! I have one!" Misao suddenly exclaimed, then went rushing out of the command center to the confusion of everyone present.

Some time later found Misao standing on the balcony outside her apartment with her pet penguin in her arms. "Okay, Pen-Pen, you're going to be the most famous penguin in the history of the world," she said. "Even more than that one we saw on that Christmas special last year."

"Wark…"

"No, it'll be easy!" Misao insisted, tying a letter to Pen-Pen's collar. "All you have to do is fly this letter Commander Ikari!"

"Wark?!"

"Don't be a coward!" Misao snapped, raising Pen-Pen above her head.

"Wark!" the waterfowl squawked wildly as it thrashed about in a desperate attempt to escape. "Wark! Wark!"

"Go, my valiant Pen-Pen! Fly!" Misao shouted gleefully, flinging her pet off her balcony.

The penguin flapped its flippers wildly as it fell down, down, down toward the ground below…

Only to be caught by a frantic Shinji Ikari. The Third Child breathed a sigh of relief.

"Damn," Ritsuko observed. "And I thought Misao had _stopped_ drinking!"

"Up until now, so did I," Shinji grumbled as he put the shaken penguin down.

* * *

Debate Stopper

Misao didn't really know why she'd agreed to go to the Pulse with Ritsuko. Maybe it was an attempt to salvage her fast fading friendship with the blonde, but if it was, it was a crappy one. Indeed, all that sitting there was doing was reminding her how much more pleasant spending time with Shinji was than watching Ritsuko get drunk while she herself sipped green tea.

"So as I was saying," Ritsuko said, her voice heavily slurred, "Yumi's wedding…is the reason that Unit Two is far superior to that Unit One."

Misao blinked, and once she had gotten past Ritsuko's drunken non sequitur, bristled. "Oh, please!" she snorted. "Unit Two is only better than Unit One on paper! It's constantly outperformed the production model in actual combat!"

Ritsuko blinked owlishly at Misao for several seconds, obviously caught completely off guard by the argument. Then a very wicked grin formed on her face.

"Oh yeah?" Ritsuko drawled. "Well…I have bigger boobs than you!"

Misao recoiled in sheer surprise. That was _her_ argument winning drunken comeback!

"What?!" she exclaimed. "No, you—"

Misao cut herself off abruptly, a truly terrible revelation sweeping over her. Slowly, she looked down at her own chest, then turned her gaze toward Ritsuko's. She herself was very gifted for a young teenager, but Ritsuko was a full grown woman, and one whom genetics had been quite kind to.

Not _as_ kind as they would be to Misao, she knew, but for the moment…

Ritsuko threw her head back and cackled loudly as it became clear that Misao had realized the horrible truth.

Misao, of course, couldn't just take this laying down. "Oh yeah?! Well…well…I'm younger than you are!"

"What?" Ritsuko gasped, clearly not having expected Misao to recover and launch a counterattack.

"That's right!" Misao said with a smirk. "_I'm_ just about to reenter the prime of my life, while _you_ are standing on the verge of being thirty, you old hag!"

"Old hag?!" Ritsuko sputtered, just before her eyes filled with molten rage. "Why you little…!"

The blonde suddenly made a grab for the Fourth Child's throat, only to miss when someone suddenly pulled Misao's chair back and got her out of reach. The soused scientist then lost her balance and fell flat on her face.

Misao turned around to face her savior and was surprised to see the First Child. "Rei?"

"_Don't_ call an Akagi woman an old hag," Rei said. "Trust me, I learned that lesson the hard way."


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

Chapter Thirteen: **The Fourth and the Thirteenth/The Pilot and the King**

Maya sighed as she looked through the various reports that she had to read and sign as a part of her job. More than once she had been tempted to sign off on them without bothering to read the things, but the former technician was too dutiful to do any such thing. Besides, sometimes she was afraid that with her luck, the first thing she signed without reading first would be a document giving all her worldly possessions to Kaji or something.

Yet, Japanese work ethic or no, she was pleased when a knock at her door interrupted her work. "Come in," she called.

The door slid open with a hiss and the Fourth Child entered. "Hello, Maya," she said. "Having fun?"

"Boatloads," Maya answered sarcastically, but she smiled. "So, what brings you here, Misao?"

"I was wondering what the word was," Misao said.

Maya just arched an inquisitive eyebrow in response. Misao sighed. "Maya, don't forget I used to have your job. I know that the Committee's been trying to stick its nose into our business."

Maya nodded. "Yes, they have. They want to speak to Asuka. They believe that the last Angel may have tried to make contact with her, but I've told them that it's not a good idea."

Misao nodded approvingly, relieved. She had been afraid that the former techie would flinch in the face of the group of old men who controlled the purse strings. "I'm glad you did that. I don't think Asuka needs to be interrogated by the Human Instrumentality Committee right now."

"How is Asuka, anyway? In your professional opinion." Maya said. "I haven't seen her much since the last battle, and Section Two's reports can be rather lacking sometimes."

Misao sighed. "She's been very subdued recently. She didn't even throw a fit over the recent drop in her sync scores, though she obviously wasn't pleased about it. I never thought that I'd miss her behavior from before the battle. She was being a pain in the ass, but…I'm worried about her."

"If it was Shinji that was starting to crack under the pressure, I'd replace him with you until he could recover," Maya mused, "but that's simply not an option for Asuka."

Misao nodded. "Knowing Asuka, I doubt pulling her out of the entry plug would help her disposition much, though as a former officer I can understand why you'd want to."

"It's ironic," Maya said absently. "The one pilot with a backup seems to be the one who needs a backup the least."

Misao opened her mouth to make a reply, but she was cut off by the sound of klaxons blaring throughout the base. The two women traded a horrified look. "Angel?" they both whispered before getting up and rushing to the command center.

"Status report!" Maya demanded as they ran in.

"It's the Second Branch in the US," Aoba said, his eyes wide as he stared at his screen. "It's just…disappeared."

* * *

Though she generally considered staring up at the ceiling for long periods of time to be the Third Child's thing, Asuka didn't consider herself above indulging in such activities, at least not at the moment.

_Could that really have been Mama?_ She wondered, as she had been wondering since she had awoken after the destruction of the Twelfth Angel.

The thought seemed preposterous at first, but Asuka found that she could not discard it entirely. After all, she knew that _she_ wasn't the one that had spurred her Unit Two into going berserk. Asuka couldn't deny that something or _someone_ else had done that, much as she would like to believe that she herself was the one responsible for the death of Twelfth Angel.

But the notion that there was a ghost in her machine, and that it was her mother's ghost no less, was simply too fantastic and impossible for her to give credence to.

Hence, the Second Child was left with two possibilities, both of them totally impossible. She couldn't have gotten herself free of the Angel, but at the same time…

_Why would Mama even do that for me?_ Asuka thought, a bitterness that had only grown stronger since it was born a decade ago coming to the forefront of her mind. _She wouldn't save my life. She thought that she killed…_

Horrible memories suddenly came rushing to the surface, memories of her mother looking lovingly down at that hateful little doll and calling it by her name. Memories of walking into that hospital room and discovering not just Mama suspended from the ceiling, but that loathsome doll as well. Memories of realizing the terrible fact that, if not for her mother's inability to tell her apart from that little useless little pile of stuffing and fabric, it might have been _her_ swinging next to Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu.

_**Enough!**_

With a mental snarl, Asuka forced those memories back into the deepest recesses of her mind, where she felt they belonged.

_EVA's been known to do some insane and unpredictable things,_ she thought. _My Unit Two was supposed to be better than that, but I guess it's not impossible for it to do unexpected things by itself, either._

The actions of her Evangelion thus rationalized, Asuka got up and searched for something to do. She needed something to occupy her mind, because she knew that the possibility that it had been her mother that had rescued her from the darkness would gnaw at her unless she did, no matter what she told herself.

* * *

"So what will happen to Unit Three?" Maya asked Ritsuko after the command staff had finished reviewing the disaster in Nevada.

Maya still got shivers whenever she thought about it. Everything within an 89 kilometer radius had been wiped off the map by a Dirac Sea, which was presumably created by the experimental S2 engine the Second Branch was attempting to install in EVA Unit Four. It was a potent reminder that, wonderful though science was, pushing humanity's knowledge forward was never without risks.

"It's being shipped here as we speak," Ritsuko said. "The Americans are all too eager to get it off their soil after this catastrophe."

"How are you going to handle the test activation?" Maya asked. "The Dummy System?"

Ritsuko noted the disapproving tone in her former subordinate's voice but didn't comment on it. Maya had never approved of that particular project. Perhaps it was for the best that she'd been transferred out of Technical Division One, despite everything else.

"I'll decide soon," Ritsuko said.

The two women fell silent after that. Once they finally reached the bottom of the escalator, Ritsuko and Maya said good-bye and then parted ways.

Pondering just how much she envied Maya's innocence, Ritsuko reached a pair of elevators and slid her ID card into the reader. Instantly, one of the elevator's doors opened and she stepped inside, heading for Terminal Dogma, home to the darkest and most dangerous secrets within NERV.

After several minutes of descending down the incredibly long elevator shaft, Ritsuko finally came to her destination. It was an enormous room, which had only two rows of fairly small lights along the ceiling. They had slightly more effect than the glow of a cigarette would inside an empty and otherwise pitch dark warehouse.

Almost the moment she stepped out of the elevator car, Gendo Ikari emerged from the shadows like a wraith. "Dr. Akagi," he said in terse acknowledgement.

Ritsuko resisted the urge to roll her eyes. There they were, secret lovers in a dark room hidden from the rest of the world, and Gendo was all business, as usual. She suppressed her annoyance at him with some difficulty and forced herself to act professional as well.

"This is the Dummy Plug prototype," Ritsuko said, gesturing up at a large metal cylinder, nearly identical to an entry plug but painted red. "Rei's personal data has been loaded into it, but we can't really digitize a human mind and soul. In the end, this is nothing but a pale duplication that emulates the real pilot's thinking processes. It's still only a machine."

The harsh light from the fixtures in the subbasement lab flashed off Gendo's glasses. "It transmits a signal pattern to the EVA. If the EVA believes that there is a pilot and synchronizes, then that's good enough," he said bluntly. "Load the data into Units One and Two."

"But we're still working out the bugs, sir," Ritsuko protested.

"Just do it," Gendo commanded. "It's sufficient."

"Yes, sir," Ritsuko said, knowing that she wouldn't win this debate no matter what she told him.

"I've delegated the task of transporting Unit Three to the UN," Gendo said, changing subjects. "It will be here by the end of the weekend. At that point, you will take care of it."

"Yes, sir. We'll perform the modifications and activation in Matsushiro," Ritsuko said.

"And the test pilot?" Gendo asked.

"Use of the Dummy Plug is not recommended," Ritsuko warned. "One of our candidates—"

"No," Gendo interrupted. "You will use the Fourth Child for the activation experiment."

"Misato?" Ritsuko frowned in confusion. "But, sir, she's barely able to sync past the absolute borderline in Units Zero and Two. There's no reason to expect that Unit Three will be any different."

"Syncing past the absolute borderline is all that is necessary for activating the EVA, is it not?" Gendo replied.

It wasn't really a question, but Ritsuko answered anyway. "Well, yes. But, sir, there's one child available whose core can be prepared immediately."

"We will designate that child as the Fifth at a later time," Gendo said. "I wish to see exactly how the Third reacts to the Fourth being used as the pilot for the activation. Additionally, it may look suspicious if we are able to locate the Fifth Child so quickly."

"I see, sir," Ritsuko said, frowning.

She knew well enough that Gendo's inability to exactly discern Shinji's motivations had disturbed him, probably far more than he let on. She had not, however, foreseen Gendo using Misato like this to figure out the workings of his son's soul.

But she should have, she realized. After all, there was no doubt that Misato was _somehow_ at the center of Shinji's attitude adjustment, and Ritsuko had never had any illusions that Gendo would refrain from using the Fourth Child in whatever way he felt was most beneficial to his scenario. A man who could use his only son as a pawn certainly wouldn't hold himself back from using a child unrelated to him in a similar manner, after all.

_If only I'd seen this coming, I probably could have figured out the reasons behind the way Shinji changed after Misato's transformation,_ Ritsuko thought, detesting herself almost as much as she detested Gendo at that moment. _I am supposed to be their guardian, after all._

Misato wouldn't have to go through the activation test if Ritsuko could just _tell_ Gendo what he wanted to know, after all, but her personal policy of avoiding the "human element" of Project-E had kept her from ever discovering that. From her increasingly infrequent interactions with Misato, Ritsuko suspected that the Fourth Child was somewhat smitten with Shinji. However, she had no idea if _he_ felt the same way, or if the Third Child viewed her as little more than a potential usurper to his place as the primary pilot of Unit One.

"Come," Gendo said as he began to head for another part of Terminal Dogma, pulling Ritsuko out of her thoughts.

_I guess I'm overreacting,_ Ritsuko thought as she followed him to the Dummy Plug Assembly Plant. _After all, it's just an activation test. It's not like anything will happen to Misato._

* * *

"What's up, Rits?" Misao asked as she walked into her old friend's office some time later. "You wanted to see me about something?"

Ritsuko nodded. "Yes. You're aware that the remaining American Branch is sending Unit Three here, correct?"

"Of course," Misao said. "And I have to say that they have a lot of nerve, dumping it on us after insisting upon the right to build it in the first place."

Ritsuko shrugged. "After what happened, I can't really blame them for wanting to get rid of it," she said. "Anyway, the activation test for Unit Three is scheduled for Monday afternoon in the Matsushiro base. The Marduk Institute hasn't found the Fifth Child yet, and since the Dummy System isn't ready, you're going to be the pilot for the test."

"Me?" Misao asked, visibly surprised.

"Yes," Ritsuko nodded. "All you need to do is sync past the absolute borderline and activate the EVA. What, have you forgotten that you're the Fourth Child now?"

"Ritsuko, it is impossible to have to inhale liquid that smells like blood every few days and forget why you're doing it," Misao said sagely. "Anyway, I'll be pleased to do it."

"Good," Ritsuko said, turning back to her work.

"Say, Rits, on the off chance that I manage to get a decent synchronization ratio with Unit Three…"

"Then, yes, the Commander will probably designate you as its pilot," Ritsuko said.

"Yes!" Misao cheered. "So far, only Unit One seems to like me, but maybe I'll have some luck with this one."

_I wouldn't bet on it,_ Ritsuko thought sourly, knowing that Unit Three had far more in common with the Evangelions that seemingly wouldn't accept her than the one that would.

"I hope I can sync with it," Misao continued. "These three kids are carrying way too much on their shoulders. Rei's always been exemplary. Shinji has been as well, once he managed to hit his stride, but I can't help but worry that it'll start to get to him again. And Asuka's already starting to have problems."

"Well, good luck," Ritsuko said softly.

* * *

"Say, Kensuke, where did Toji go off to?" Shinji asked as he and the otaku left the school. "He was in class today, but he split right after dismissal."

"I think he went to visit his sister," Kensuke answered. "How is Misao-san? She wasn't in class today."

Shinji sighed. "Oh, she's fine. She's at NERV right now, doing some tests."

"Hmm, hey, Shinji, have you heard about the new EVA?" Kensuke asked. "The one they built in the United States?"

Shinji smiled wanly, even though he didn't really feel like it. "Of course I have, Ken," he said. "I am an EVA pilot, you know."

Not only did Shinji know about it, but he'd been able to think about little else since Misao had told him she was going to be the pilot of Unit Three for the activation test. The fear that she would be able to achieve a high sync ratio with it as she hoped had been gnawing away at him for days. Probably the only reason Misao hadn't noticed his anxiety when she'd told him and Asuka was because of the Second Child's exuberant reaction when she had added that Kaji would be looking after them while she was gone.

"So the rumors are true?" Kensuke asked excitedly. "It's really been completed? And they're going to have an activation test in Matsushiro?"

"Yeah, it's true," Shinji said, looking up at the sky.

"So, that means they've chosen the pilot, doesn't it?" Kensuke asked, obviously bracing himself for the disappointment.

"Yes and no," Shinji answered. "Misao's going to be the pilot for the test, but they haven't decided what to do after that. Every EVA except Unit One seems to…reject her, I guess. If Unit Three does, too, I guess they'll have to find another pilot."

"If…if Unit Three rejects Misao-san, could you recommend me?" Kensuke pleaded. "Please, Shinji! I really wanna be an EVA pilot!"

Shinji shook his head. "NERV doesn't pick the pilots, some group called the Marduk Institute does. I don't even know who's in it, so I can't recommend you. Sorry, Ken. Besides, you wouldn't want to be an EVA pilot anyway. Trust me."

"Oh," Kensuke sighed, barely having registered the latter part of what Shinji had said. "Thanks anyway, Shinji."

* * *

"Okay, well, I'm off," Misao said cheerfully, picking up her suitcases. "I'll be back in four days, hopefully as the pilot of Unit Three."

"I still don't get why you need to be gone for four days," Shinji said. "It doesn't take that long to activate an EVA."

"Well, there's a lot of work to do with the modifications and all that," Misao said. "Maya asked me to come along and lend a hand, and I couldn't say no. She does let me do the fun parts of her job, after all."

"I guess," Shinji said.

"Well, wish me luck," Misao said.

"Good luck," Shinji said, unable to keep himself from sounding half hearted, even to his ears.

He was all too aware of the fact that if Misao could get a decent sync ratio with Unit Three, he would have failed in his quest to keep her out of EVA. And there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

_It's just an activation test,_ he told himself for what had to be the thousanth time, failing to reassure himself at all.

Misao frowned slightly. "Have fun at school while I'm gone, Shinji-kun, and don't forget to bring my printouts home. I'll see you in a few days. Bye."

She left the apartment and was soon at the ground level, where a military transport was waiting for her with Ritsuko already inside. Misao stowed her suitcase in the back and climbed in.

"What's with the long face?" Ritsuko asked. "I thought you were looking forward to this."

"I am," Misao assured her. "I'm just a little worried about Shinji. He's seemed kind of depressed lately. Like before the battle against the Fourth Angel almost."

"Is that so?" Ritsuko asked.

"Yeah," Misao said. "In a way it worries me. I wouldn't like it if I got my own EVA just as Shinji actually needed a backup pilot. On the other hand, though, if I become the pilot of Unit Three, then I can actually alongside him and the other pilots. That should take some of the pressure off all of the Children."

Ritsuko nodded, feeling slightly queasy as she led her friend off to the NERV car that would take them to Matsushiro. The mere fact that Shinji was depressed over Misao potentially getting her own EVA and no longer competing with him for his went a long way toward illuminating what really drove Shinji. However, NERV couldn't call off the activation test now without inviting a storm of questions and complaints from SEELE.

_And Misato's just completely failing to put the pieces together,_ Ritsuko mused, shaking her head. _Misato, you were the best friend I ever had, but you can be such a fool sometimes._For the first time ever, the self-proclaimed greatest EVA pilot decided to grace the pilot's table with her presence. It was a red letter day from one perspective, and a sign of the coming apocalypse from another.

* * *

"A-Asuka, what are you doing here?" Shinji asked as she plopped herself down.

"What? You should feel privileged that I'm sitting with you two," Asuka snapped. "To answer your question, though, Shinji, I've decided to sit here because Hikari is having lunch with one of your stooge friends."

Shinji blinked and looked out across the schoolyard. Sure enough, at the table Asuka usually sat at, Hikari Horaki was seated across from Toji Suzuhara, both of them looking bashful but also happy in each other's presence.

"Well…I didn't see that coming," Shinji said slowly.

"Tell me about," Asuka said, sighing dramatically. "I couldn't convince her to stay away from the trained monkey, so now I either have to sit here or watch my best friend make kissy faces at that idiot all during lunch."

"Well, it's nice to have you here," Shinji said, unable to keep the glum tone out of his voice.

"Say, why are you so gloomy all of a sudden?" Asuka demanded. "I haven't seen you like this since right after I got here. Maybe not even then."

"I'm not gloomy," Shinji said defensively.

"Yeah, right," Asuka snorted, then smiled wickedly. "Is it because you're worried about your girlfriend? Afraid something will go wrong with the test?"

"Pilot Soryu," Rei spoke up before Shinji could make any kind of reply.

Asuka scowled. "What is it, Wondergirl?" she demanded.

"Shut up," Rei said in her usual deadpan voice.

For a wonder, Asuka was so stunned that she actually did.

* * *

The first night at the apartment without Misao passed without major incident. As Shinji had expected, most of the evening was spent watching Asuka shamelessly come onto Kaji, and the Special Inspector shrugging off her attention as gracefully as he was able. It normally would have annoyed him, but at the moment he was glad of it. Thanks to Asuka's antics, neither she nor Kaji really took any notice of Shinji and his depressed state.

At last Kaji, who seemed to be nearing the end of his patience, declared it was bedtime.

Since Misao didn't want Kaji in her room while she was away, and having him bunk with Asuka was obviously out of the question, Shinji ended up with the unshaven man in his room, laying on a futon right next to his own.

Shinji couldn't help but feel very awkward, laying next to Misao's ex-boyfriend. Knowing that Kaji had once had what Shinji himself wanted so badly (but knew he didn't deserve) nearly drove the Third Child into fits of jealousy. The tiny, less than virtuous voice at the back of his mind urging him to ask Kaji what Misao was like in bed wasn't helping matters, either.

"Hey, Shinji, you awake?" Kaji asked softly.

"No, uh, I mean yes," Shinji answered, caught by surprise.

Kaji chuckled. "How are you and Katsuragi getting along, Shinji?"

"We get along fine," Shinji said, wondering why Kaji was asking. "She's my best friend."

"Mm. You worried about her, Shinji?"

"Yeah," he confessed softly.

"Don't let it bother you too much," Kaji advised. "Katsuragi's a real fighter. She's quite a woman."

"Yeah, she is," Shinji agreed, smiling in the dark.

Silence fell for a long moment. Just as Shinji decided that the man was done speaking to him and closed his eyes, Kaji finally spoke up again. "Did you know that I was never sure if I could truly love someone?"

"What?" Shinji asked, confused at the abrupt change of topic.

"Yes," Kaji said. "Second Impact happened when I was about your age, Shinji. My family died in Second Impact when tidal waves washed away our hometown. My mother, my father, and my brother…all gone in the blink of an eye. I got lucky, if you can call it that. My class was on a day long field trip to the mountains, and we were too high up and too far inland for the tsunami to reach us. I eventually ended up in a refugee camp. It's impossible for someone of your generation to really understand what the terrible years right after Second Impact were like, no matter how often you hear about them in school. The camp was overcrowded and lawless, a hell on Earth. The person you said hello to in the morning could easily be dead in the afternoon…or he could be trying to kill you and steal your food in the evening. If you wanted to survive, you had to learn, among other things, to never get attached to anyone there and to hold everyone at arm's length. I was never fully able to drop that particular mindset. It's helped me in my line of work, but it's made finding love difficult. For years, I wondered if I was capable of love. Now I know."

"You do?" Shinji asked.

"Yes," Kaji said. "I now know that I'm not."

"Huh?"

"I know that I'm incapable of love," Kaji said, sounding strangely bemused. "The only woman I might have been able to love was Katsuragi. That was something I didn't realize until long after she'd left me. That's why I didn't chase after her when she fled from me. I was young and foolish. I was hoping to win her back, to see if I could really love her, when I came here. But the incident with Unit One wrecked those plans."

"What if you had gotten close to her again and found out that you couldn't love her?" Shinji asked.

Kaji sighed. "Sometimes it doesn't pay to plan too far into the future, Shinji. You know what they say God does when Man makes a plan."

_A lesson I don't believe your father will ever learn,_ Kaji added silently.

Shinji frowned. He could certainly understand why Kaji would want to try to find love with Misato, but still, he found the idea of the unshaven man experimenting with her heart to be deeply repugnant, to say the least. Misao deserved far better than that.

"I suppose I just wanted to make sure you realize how special a woman Katsuragi really is," Kaji said.

"Don't worry, I do," Shinji said softly, closing his eyes.

* * *

"Wow, it's pretty ugly," Misao commented as she gazed up at the black armored form of Unit Three.

The black armored EVA was quite similar looking to Unit One, despite the fact that the basic designed was based off of Unit Two, the first production model. The head in particular was very similar to Unit One's, with the only real change being that it lacked the long horn that the test type had. But at the same time, several subtle differences made Unit Three look almost like a…decrepit version of Unit One.

"Getting cold feet, Pilot Katsuragi?" Ritsuko teased, rather half heartedly.

"No way!" Misao said, making a fist. "Let's get this show on the road, Rits!"

Ritsuko nodded. "It's about time to begin. Head into the entry plug. I'll be in the command center here overseeing the activation."

"Right," Misao said, already heading for the lift. "Well, see ya after the test is done, Ritsuko!"

She stepped into the elevator and began to head up to the top of the cage. Misao carefully placed the white A-10 connector clips in her hair. She had donned her plug suit a while ago. It was still the mostly white and blue Unit One suit, though she'd probably get a new one if she was assigned to Unit Three. Part of her would actually be sad to be rid of it, despite the fact that she hadn't done much of anything in it but take sync tests and do combat simulations.

_Well, at least if I get a new plug suit, they'll be able to make it so it won't be too tight in the chest like this one is getting,_ she thought absently.

She reached the top of the cage and stepped onto the walkway, heading for the waiting entry plug. Misao couldn't deny the fact that she did feel some anxiety at the prospect of doing this, even though she had no idea why. She had synced with Unit One dozens of times.

_Maybe it's because Unit Three is damn ugly,_ she thought. _I wonder if I can talk NERV into painting it a different color? Pity purple's already taken. It would go great with my hair._

Misao silently berated herself as she climbed into the entry plug. Her thoughts always tried to go in a thousand different directions when she was nervous and had no problem to focus her mind on solving.

The entry plug hatch closed, and the unmistakable sensation of it being inserted into the EVA followed. LCL began to flood the plug seconds later. When it got above her head, Misao inhaled deeply, then grimaced as she always did at the taste and the sensation of 'breathing' in liquid.

"Electrolyzing LCL," a technician whose voice she didn't recognize transmitted over the radio.

For a moment, a tingling sensation covered her entire body. The LCL suddenly became clear, losing the amber color, and the sensation stopped.

"Initiating first stage connections."

Misao felt the beginning of the EVA "tugging" at her mind through the neural connector clips. She gripped the controls tightly in anticipation. The walls of the entry plug were replaced by a whirl of random images until they finally settled upon the room outside the EVA.

"Graph readout is normal."

"Graph display is within tolerance."

"Phase one contact has been cleared."

"Roger," she heard Ritsuko say. "The test will proceed to phase two."

"Full nerve link established."

"Harmonics are normal."

"We are now approaching the absolute borderline."

All of the sudden, the displays abruptly winked out, the walls of the entry plug becoming as solid and impossible to see through as ever. The mental link between her and the EVA was terminated.

"What the hell?!" Misao exclaimed. "Rits! What did you do?"

There was no response from the scientist. Seconds later, the entry plug began to shake and Misao realized that Unit Three was moving. "That's impossible!" she shouted, grabbing the controls and pulling on them furiously. "Stop, damn you! Stop!"

It did not stop. In fact, it suddenly shook far more than mere moving about would account for. Misao swallowed as she realized that something was seriously wrong. EVA shouldn't be able to move without a connection to its pilot, not even if it went berserk. And the only thing that possibly seize control of an Evangelion was...

All the lights within the plug suddenly went out, plunging Misao into total and complete blackness.

* * *

"An accident in Matsushiro? It can't be! What happened to Misao?" Shinji asked, feeling like he had a ball of ice in his stomach. "Is she all right?"

NERV had scrambled the moment they had detected the explosion at the auxiliary base, rushing the EVA's to the area near Matsushiro. Shinji hadn't allowed himself to think from the moment he'd been informed to now, largely working on auto-pilot as he got suited up and worked on getting to the site. Now that they were all in position, however, there was nothing for him to do _but_ worry, and it was all Shinji could do to keep himself from becoming panicked and thus useless.

_God damn it. I _knew_ that I should have stopped Misao from doing this,_ Shinji thought, totally neglecting to consider the fact that he had simply had no way of preventing her from going through with the activation test.

"Misao's status is unknown," Rei answered softly. "Contact hasn't been restored yet."

"Maya was there, too," Shinji said. "Who's going to command this mission?"

"Command Ikari will be personally commanding us in this battle," Rei informed him.

Shinji just grimaced. _Misao, please be all right._

* * *

"We're receiving an image of the target from the Nobe Mountain station," Aoba reported. "Transferring to the main monitor."

Everyone watched the main screen as the target emerged from behind a mountain, the great dark shape silhouetted by the blood red light of the setting sun. Several of the personnel gasped when they realized that it was none other than Evangelion Unit Three.

"As we suspected," Fuyutski said grimly, his voice too soft for any but Gendo to hear.

"Transmit the abort signal," Gendo ordered. "Eject the Unit's entry plug."

"Hai," Sakura said, her fingers flying over her keyboard.

Outside, the armor that covered the entry plug was blown off, but the plug was unable to follow. Several small jets within the entry plug fired, trying to take it to safety, but they were only to get the plug about a quart way out of the cavity in the EVA's back before it was stopped by a web of thick gray ooze.

"It's not working, sir," Sakura reported. "Both the abort signal and the ejection commands are being ignored."

"What about the pilot?" Gendo asked.

"Her heart's still beating and she's breathing, but she's probably…" Makoto swallowed, unable to say it.

"I see," Gendo said, unfazed by this dire knowledge. "Then we must accept the loss of Evangelion Unit Three. Reclassify it as the Thirteenth Angel."

"But, sir…" Makoto protested weakly.

"Deploy our forces around the base of Mount Nobe," Gendo ordered firmly in a voice that brooked no argument. "The target must be destroyed!"

* * *

"Target is approaching. All Units, prepare to engage."

Shinji looked up and felt the ball of ice in his stomach expand to fill his entire body. The target, labeled the Thirteenth Angel on his HUD, was unmistakably an EVA.

"It can't be!" he said. "Is that the Angel?"

"Correct," his father's unwavering voice answered. "That is your target."

"But that's EVA Unit Three!" Shinji protested. "Father, is Misao still in there?"

Silence answered him.

"Father, answer me," Shinji said more firmly, his voice tightly controlled. "Is Misao still inside Unit Three?"

Again, there was no reply from Gendo Ikari.

"Answer me!" Shinji yelled, his self control rapidly shredding in the face of his father's maddening silence.

"Calm down, Third Child!" Asuka snapped, the FROM EVA-02 window popping up. "If Misao's still inside it—"

The window abruptly became filled with snow. Shinji gasped in horror.

"Asuka?!" Shinji asked.

The window winked out.

* * *

Nearly a kilometer away from Unit One, the crimson form of Unit Two lay on the ground, its azure blood spilling out onto the ground from the multiple wounds that the Thirteenth Angel had inflicted upon it in record time. And while Shinji couldn't see this from his perspective, the visual feed being displayed on the main screen in the command center displayed this quite clearly.

"EVA Unit Two has ceased transmitting," Hyuga reported. "The pilot has ejected. Rescue teams are en route."

"Target is moving toward Unit Zero's position!" Aoba said urgently.

Gendo was nonplussed as always, which came as no surprise to those who both knew him and understood his scenario. After all, neither Asuka nor her EVA was essential to the scenario; so far as he was concerned, the Second Child was just so much extra insurance against the Angels and thus completely expendable.

"Rei, stop it but avoid close range combat. I'll send Unit One in to support you," he ordered.

"Yes, sir," Rei said.

The First Child kept Unit Zero crouched in waiting as the Angel walked by, never varying its steady gait. Rei engaged her targeting display and raised her pallet rifle, focusing the reticule on EVA Three. She moved to pull the trigger.

And found she couldn't do it. It would be such a simple thing, to command Unit Zero to pull the trigger of the pallet rifle it held. She had pulled the triggers of Evangelion firearms literally hundreds of times, if combat simulations were included in the tally. She could literally do it with a thought.

Part of the reason for her creation, for her very _existence_, was for her to kill the Angels.

Yet she still couldn't do it.

_The pilot is…my friend._

The Thirteenth Angel turned abruptly, facing Unit Zero. Rei screamed as it charged her with impossible speed, slamming into her EVA and tackling it to the ground. Before she could react the black Evangelion turned Angel had her Unit Zero pinned firmly to the ground with an iron grip.

A gray, viscous liquid oozed out of the joints in Unit Three's armor and began to drip down onto Unit Zero's left arm. The evil looking stuff wriggled as though alive and began to seek out the joints and grooves in the blue giant's own armor.

* * *

"The Angel is merging itself into Unit Zero's arm!" Sakura exclaimed, her eyes widening in horror. "Neural contamination is spreading!"

"Sever the left arm immediately," Gendo ordered.

"But the pilot's nerve connections are still active!" Sakura protested. "If we do that—"

"Cut it off," Gendo hissed.

* * *

Rei shrieked in pain as Unit Zero's left arm burst off its body, feeling pain explode in her own body as though her arm had been the one ripped from its socket. The Angel stood and looked down upon its fallen foe for a moment before it continued its trek, apparently satisfied that it no longer had any need to fear further attack from the prototype Evangelion.

"The target is approaching you, Unit One," Gendo voice filled Shinji's entry plug. "Contact in twenty seconds. You must destroy it."

"I'm not doing a damn thing until you answer my question," Shinji said in a soft but dangerous voice that the Third Child had never used before. "Is she in there?"

Part of him could barely believe that he was speaking to his father like this, but the greater part was consumed with worry for Misao.

"That is irrelevant," Gendo retorted coldly.

"Not to me!" Shinji snapped, pounding his fist on one of the control grips. "Not to me it isn't!"

"Engage the target!" Gendo barked.

"Answer me!"

Units One and Three were now only about half a dozen EVA sized steps apart. The Angel roared, displaying EVA Unit Three's blunt, dark red teeth, and leapt into the air at Unit One.

It slammed into the purple EVA Unit, sending it flying backwards and knocking the pallet rifle from its hands. Shinji grunted in pain as he felt the impact against his own body, courtesy of his neural connection with Unit One. The Angel landed on all fours, almost like some kind of primate, giving Shinji a perfect view of its back.

"An entry plug. She _is_ still inside!" he said.

_I have to save her,_ he thought, his face hardening.

He brought Unit One back to its feet, but before he could make a move, the Angel lashed out, its arms stretching impossibly, hands wrapping around Unit One's throat.

"Oh no, you don't!" Shinji shouted as he felt his own airways closing.

Unit One grabbed onto the Angel's wrists and pulled its hands from its throat with one savage tug. Before the Angel could respond, Shinji jerked his enemy's arms toward him and downwards with every ounce of Unit One's might. Caught by surprise, the Angel was slammed face first to the ground.

Immediately, Unit One kneeled down next to its foe, placing one hand on the small of the Angel's back and pressing it down. With its free hand, it tried to pull out the entry plug trapped inside the possessed EVA Three.

It was a very delicate task for an EVA's large hand, made even more difficult by the fact that there was a human life inside the plug that Shinji could easily kill by accident if he wasn't careful.

"Pilot Ikari, what are you doing?" Gendo demanded.

Shinji didn't answer, partly because he thought that if his father could leave him chewing on silence, then he could do the same right back to the commander, and partly because he had more pressing matters to focus his attention on.

"Your orders are to terminate the Angel, not rescue the pilot of EVA Three," Gendo growled.

Again, Shinji ignored him.

The Angel suddenly got up, throwing Unit One off of it. It pounced on its off balance enemy, knocking it to the ground. The ebony armored Angel stood, looking down upon its prey. It raised its arms, and the same gray substance that it had unleashed upon Unit Zero began to trickle down toward the last Evangelion standing between the Angel and NERV headquarters.

Unit One kicked it in the torso with both legs, sending it flying. Some of the gray slime that the Angel had produced went falling toward him, and Shinji was just barely able to twist Unit One's body so as to avoid it. The purple Evangelion then jumped to its feet, sprinting toward the Angel, even as the possessed EVA continued to fly through the air. At last the Angel landed, turning dozens of trees into toothpicks as its weight landed on them.

Shinji flipped it over so it was laying on its stomach and again began to try and pry the entry plug out of it.

"This is not going to work, Pilot Ikari. Abandon your rescue attempt," Gendo ordered. "Terminate the Angel!"

Once more, Shinji didn't bother to reply.

"Shinji!" Gendo growled. "I order you to kill this Angel!"

His father's use of his given name enraged him. The day after Gendo had forced Shinji to pilot EVA for the first time, did the man call him by his name? No. When Shinji had really started putting his heart into EVA and shown marked improvement, had Gendo called his son by his name? No. When Shinji had willingly taken on near impossible odds to help save the city from the Tenth Angel and been the one who made the catch, had Gendo called him by his name? No. When the two had met at Yui's grave, contemplating on their shared sorrow over her loss (which was perhaps the only thing they shared), had his father called him by his name then? No.

Only now that his father was trying to get him to kill Misao, now that Gendo was trying to get him to do something—to be useful to him again—did he show even the tiniest glimmer of paternal affection.

"_**Fuck you!**_" Shinji screamed, voice suddenly hoarse as his rage exploded. "_**Fuck you and your orders, you miserable bastard! I am going to save her or I am going to die trying!**_"

The Angel flung Unit One off of itself again. Unit One scrambled to its feet, and Shinji readied himself for another round.

* * *

"Damn it," Gendo swore, getting to his feet. "Shut down all of Unit One's synchronization circuits immediately!"

The bridge techs turned to him in confusion.

"Do it!" Gendo commanded. "Switch all control of the Unit to the Dummy Plug System!"

Sakura's eyes widened. "But, sir, the Dummy System isn't ready yet!" she protested. "Dr. Akagi hasn't approved its use!"

"It's still better than the current pilot! The Third Child's going to allow all of humanity to die for the sake of one person if he's allowed to keep control of Unit One!" Gendo yelled. "Do it!"

"Yes, sir," Sakura said, resentment clear in her voice as she reluctantly keyed in the appropriate commands.

* * *

All of Shinji's displays abruptly went dead, his connection with Unit One dying instantly. The entry plug was plunged into darkness.

"What the hell?" Shinji breathed.

Red light suddenly filled the plug, and a single screen lit up, the words, "Operation Dummy Plug System: Rei" appearing in yellow letters on it.

Shinji's eyes widened. The feeling of having ice inside his body, which had left him in the heat of battle, returned with a vengeance. Only this time, rather than his stomach, the ice gripped his heart.

"The autopilot system," Shinji whispered. "_Damn_ you, Father."

* * *

Back on the command center, the various technicians scrambled to get the Dummy Plug ready for activation. They might not agree with the commander's decision to use it, but they all knew that Unit One simply couldn't be left without anything or anyone at its controls for a moment longer than was necessary. Not if they wanted to see tomorrow.

"Signal reception is green."

"Control system switching is complete."

"All nerves linked to the Dummy System."

"Thirty-eight point two percent of emotional elements are unclear. It can't be monitored," Sakura said, worry clear in her voice.

"Sir?" Hyuga spoke up doubtfully, not liking the idea of switching on an incontrollable and unpredictable auto-pilot system one bit.

"Irrelevant," Gendo said. "Activate the system. Commence attack."

* * *

The walls of Shinji's entry plug abruptly became "transparent" again, and he watched in horror as Unit One began to move without his command. The Angel had once more wrapped its hands around Unit One's neck while the purple giant had been deactivated, but the Dummy Plug's primitive mind didn't seem to care. The purple EVA's eyes blazed red and it pulled itself forward, despite the Angel's attempts to keep it at arm's length. Unit One wrapped its hands around the Angel's neck and the two titanic foes began to compete to see which could choke the life out of the other first.

_Oh god, what am I going to do?_ Shinji thought frantically. _If I can't get him to give me back control of EVA, the Dummy System will kill Misao._

Now the only question was how could he get his Father to restore control to him? Even if he pretended to be willing to destroy the Angel without rescuing Misao first, his Father would never believe him. And even if he _did_ fall for it, his Father could easily reactivate the Dummy System the moment Shinji went back on his word.

There was nothing he could do. Gendo Ikari held all the tiles, all the winds and dragons, and Shinji had no choice but to watch as he failed at protecting Misao from Evangelion, the only task he'd ever put his heart and soul into. Worse, he had to witness Unit One, _his_ EVA destroying her. It was like his father was using Shinji's hands to commit murder…

_Stay calm!_ _Remember what Misao told you right after you got off the _Rainbow, Shinji commanded himself. _Think of all the resources you have at your disposal to deal with the problem. But what do I have in here with my nerve links to EVA cut? Nothing!_

Indeed, there wasn't exactly a pack of supplies within the entry plugs for the pilots to work with if they needed to commit an act of mutiny. Even the control yokes were just dummies, there to help the pilot focus.

Then, suddenly, his eyes widened as, just like Misao had said happened sometimes, the solution struck him like a bolt of lightning. There was one thing in EVA that was still his to command.

* * *

Hyuga Makoto blanched when he saw the warning message appear on his screen, barely able to believe Shinji would do such a thing.

"Commander!" he shouted, spinning his chair around to face Gendo. "The pilot has armed Unit One's self destruct mechanism!"

"What?!" Gendo demanded, eyes widening in an uncharacteristic display of shock.

"That's right, Father!" Shinji's voice filled the command center. "Now turn off the Dummy System and restore my nerve connections, or I'll destroy Unit One!"

"Disable the self destruct," Gendo quietly ordered the bridge techs.

"We can't, sir," Hyuga replied. "The self destruct system is isolated from the rest of EVA and cannot be controlled remotely."

Gendo clenched his fist, remembering that he himself was the one who ordered it to be set up in that manner. He had feared that SEELE or perhaps one of the Angels might use the EVA's self destruct mechanisms against them, destroying the Units with an act of computer sabotage. He had never predicted that one of the pilots might use it against him, let alone that it would be Shinji.

Shinji must have heard Hyuga, because he laughed harshly. "You can't stop me! Now put me back in control, or I'll do it! I swear to God, I will!"

Gendo gestured toward his ear, and Aoba got the hint. "The microphones in here have been switched off," he said after typing in a few hasty commands. "The pilot can't hear us any longer."

"Can we increase the pressure of the LCL and knock the pilot unconscious?" Gendo asked.

"Not quickly enough to stop him, if he really means to do this," Makoto said. "He's literally got his hand right on the switch. Nothing in the pilot's vital signs indicates that he's bluffing, though it's hard to tell. His heart was hammering before the Angel even came into view."

"Sir, given how powerful the self destruct mechanism is, the force of the blast could potentially destroy all four EVA Units," Aoba added.

"Can we electrify the LCL and stop the pilot?" Gendo demanded.

"Sir…that would kill him," Sakura breathed, her horror at Gendo's callousness plain on her face.

"Can we do it?" Gendo pressed.

"The electricity would cause his body to spasm wildly," Makoto said. "He would almost certainly pull the switch."

"Damn it, are you listening to me!" Shinji shouted. "I'm giving you five seconds to restore control of EVA to me, or I'll blow it! Five!"

Now it was Gendo who became acquainted with the sensation of ice gripping his heart.

"Four!"

With the pull of a switch, Shinji could kill Yui. How had Gendo ever allowed such a terrible power to be placed at his son's fingertips?

"Three!"

_Everything_ he had done for the past fifteen years would be for naught if Unit One was destroyed. But he couldn't lose to his son in such a manner. Surely Shinji was bluffing.

"Two!"

For the first time since the Third Angel had attacked, Father and Son were locked in a battle of wills.

This time, it was the father who blinked.

"Deactivate the Dummy System!" Gendo ordered. "Reestablish the pilot's nerve connections! Do it now!"

"Roger!" the three head technicians replied, getting to work.

Unit One again fell limp and silent, and Shinji aborted his countdown. Seconds later, the violet titan's eyes blazed pure white once more.

"Incredible," Sakura breathed, staring at her screen.

"What is it?" Fuyutski asked.

"It's the pilot's sync score," she said. "Unless there's something wrong with the synchronograph, Pilot Ikari's synchronization is currently 100 percent. A perfect one to one ratio."

* * *

Shinji had never thought that the sensation of getting strangled could feel _good_, but at the moment he was ecstatic to feel phantom hands squeezing his throat, knowing full well what it meant.

He jumped back into his command chair and grabbed the controls. Unit One's hands had gone limp when control of EVA had been shifted back to him. Now they grabbed hold of the Angel's arms and swung it into the side of Mount Nobe. The Angel's hands were pulled off Unit One's throat in the process.

The Angel fell to the ground, and, for a third time, Unit One pinned it there, face down, this time pressing its knee down onto the small of the Angel's back. The Angel writhed around, frantically trying to get free, but it was unable to escape. Shinji desperately clawed at its back, trying to get the plug out from the squirming thing. It was a near impossible task; there simply wasn't much of anything to grab onto with the plug fully embedded in the EVA.

"Send the ejection codes again!" Shinji yelled, struck by a second blast of inspiration.

Back at the command center, Sakura did so without waiting for the Commander to say anything. Again, the small rockets inside Unit Three's entry plug tried to eject the plug, and again, they succeeded only in sending it outwards several feet before it was stopped by the Angel's flesh.

But that few feet was enough. Unit One carefully gripped onto the exposed bit of the entry plug and pulled it out, the webbing the Angel had grown over it falling apart easily as he did so.

"I've got it!" Shinji yelled triumphantly, gingerly holding the plug in Unit One's fist. "I've got it! Now I need someplace safe to put it!"

"Recovery teams have already reached Asuka and Unit Two," Hyuga said crisply. "Leave the entry plug by Unit Two, and they'll pick up Misao, too."

Shinji glanced quickly at the aerial map of the area that was displayed on the far right of the front of his HUD, noting the flashing green dot that indicated the location of Unit Two.

"Thank you, Hyuga-san," Shinji said.

Tightly gripping the back of the Angel's neck with its free hand, Unit One quickly got off the Angel and, before it could make good its new freedom, picked it up and flung it a good five kilometers northwards. It was a phenomenal show of strength even for an Evangelion.

Unit One sprinted to the south, reaching the downed form of Unit Two in seconds. Carefully avoiding stepping on the rescue crew and their vehicles, Shinji gingerly set down the Unit Three entry plug. Several NERV emergency medical technicians, who all looked to be about the size of ants from Shinji's perspective, scurried over to Misao's plug.

"There," Gendo growled, clearly very pissed off. "You've rescued the pilot. Now destroy the Angel!"

"Yes, sir," Shinji said, sending Unit One running back toward its target.

He stopped when the Angel, for that was all it was now for all intents and purposes, came back into view, still clomping along slowly and steadily as though nothing had just happened.

Shinji took his hands off the butterfly grips and cracked his knuckles, unaware that Unit One was doing the same thing along with him.

_You damn near killed Misao,_ he thought, feeling a calm, deadly fury grip him now that he no longer needed to fear his best friend's fate. _I will _kill_ you for this..._

With a roar, Shinji gripped the controls again and sent Unit One sprinting toward his enemy.

The purple Evangelion slammed into the Angel with an ungodly amount of force, tackling it to the ground so hard that an EVA shaped crater was formed in the ground when they landed.

The Angel reached up to try and strange Unit One again, but Shinji wasn't having it. The test type swatted away the Angel's hands as if the deadliest foe NERV had yet faced was no more formidable than a toddler.

The Thirteenth Angel's eyes seemed to widen, and Shinji suspected that it just might have realized then how completely and inescapably doomed it was. He had no way of knowing this for sure, but the notion pleased the Third Child as he went to work on his enemy.

* * *

"My god," Sakura breathed as she stared at the main screen as though her eyes were glued to it.

"I never would have believed he had it in him," Makoto said.

"There won't be enough of it left to fill a bento box when he's done," Aoba whispered.

For the second time in two Angel engagements, the streets were painted red with blood as Shinji unleashed his rage upon the Thirteenth Angel in a display that could only be described as a slaughter. Unit One ripped the Angel's head from its body and smashed it to pulp under its boot, sending blood and bits of brain and bone flying everywhere. It tore its foe's arms and legs clean off. It pulled the armor off the torso and ripped great chunks of flesh out of it before tossing them aside like so much rubbish, heedless to where the parts of its enemy fell.

"The target has gone completely silent," Aoba reported quietly.

At last, Unit One and Shinji were finished extracting their revenge, now that the purple Evangelion was almost as red as Unit Two. The armor covering Unit One's jaw opened, and the Evangelion threw its head back and roared in triumph.

"Has the EVA gone berserk?" Hyuga asked, looking almost hopeful.

"No," Sakura whispered. "All my readings indicate that the pilot's in complete control of the EVA."

"But how…?"

"The EVA might not have gone berserk, but the pilot certainly did," Aoba said softly.

* * *

Author's Notes: It was really good to write this out and then put it up, as this chapter is one that I had in mind pretty much since I started writing this fic. I think I said, several chapters back, that I started this story so much earlier in the timeline than "Misato's Second Childhood" because I wanted more time for character development, but wanting to be able to include the Thirteenth Angel was also a big part of it, I confess. As you probably recall, I'm usually against Eva characters just telling each other their feelings, since it goes against the spirit of the show. But, if I may be pardoned for the use of a cliché, actions speak louder than words.

Now, show of hands, who really hoped that Shinji would eventually tell Gendo where he could stick it while first watching Evangelion? Also, did I manage to scare any of you when Gendo turned on the Dummy System? The Fourth Child gets saved a lot in Eva fan fiction, but I've never seen a fic where the Dummy System gets turned on and Shinji still manages to make the save. Nor have I ever seen any of the pilots use their Evangelion's self destruct to play chicken with command in this manner. So hopefully I've done something somewhat original here.

Anyway, Gendo of course won't just let Shinji off the hook for this one. What will the Bastard King do in retaliation? You'll just need to read my next chapter to find out.

Animefan29, yeah, I think that post-Tenth Angel, the biggest fundamental difference was that Shinji's defensive mechanism was passive (he pulled himself away from others) and Asuka's was aggressive (she pushed others away from her). Asuka was a lot better at acting normal in the beginning, but it was really just a facade.

Popkov, I've never read the manga, so I can't answer your question.

Ryousanki, heh, macabre wasn't what I was going for there, but I can certainly see how you'd see it that way. I was actually trying for echoes of Homer Simpson strangling Bart ("Why you little…!"), but I guess it's not surprising no one got that.

Batbabe1, I can understand where you're coming from, but I just didn't really know what to do with Shinji inside the Twelfth Angel this time. Also, I wanted to take the chance to reinforce Shinji's belief that piloting EVA will eventually destroy even the strongest person, and I felt Asuka was due for doing something stupid to try and prove she's the best.

Aedan, NefCanuck, no epiphany for Asuka, I'm afraid. The Second Child has such deep mommy issues that I don't think she could believe Kyoko's in there so easily, especially since what she saw can be rationalized away as the hallucination of an oxygen deprived brain. I'm not sure that Shinji truly believed that Yui was in Unit One in canon until he was absorbed and then spit out by EVA, and he had far fewer issues involving his mother than Asuka did.

As always, thanks to all my readers and reviewers.

* * *

Omake

Unintentional…but Acceptable

"I'm not gloomy," Shinji said defensively.

"Yeah, right," Asuka snorted, then smiled mischievously. "Is it because you're worried about your girlfriend? Afraid something will go wrong with the test?"

"Pilot Soryu," Rei spoke up before Shinji could make any kind of reply.

Asuka scowled. "What is it, Wondergirl?" she demanded.

"Shut up," Rei said in her usual deadpan voice.

"Damn it, Wondergirl! Don't you try and order me around!" Asuka snapped. "Now apologize or I'll kick you ass!"

Rei quirked an eyebrow. "I believe that the appropriate response is 'bring it on.'"

Asuka let out a roar of anger, and suddenly the two were on the ground, fighting savagely, punches and kicks flying savagely.

Shinji blinked dumbly and stared down at the two of them. _This isn't part of the scenario, _he thought.

A loud "_rip!_" could suddenly be heard, and a large piece of one of the combatant's white blouse suddenly emerged from the tussle and was carried off by the wind. Shinji arched an eyebrow.

_Not part of the scenario at all, but…I think I'll allow it,_ he decided.


	14. Chapter 14

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

Chapter Fourteen: **A Father's Revenge/A Father's Revenge**

Shinji was unsurprised to see a detail of Section Two agents waiting for him when he returned Unit One to its cage and got out of the entry plug.

"Commander Ikari has ordered us to escort you to the command center," one of them said in a voice that made it clear he was going even if they had to drag him there kicking and screaming. "You will come with us."

The Third Child nodded. "All right."

The four agents formed up around him, as though he was some kind of grave threat even outside of EVA. After the display he just put on outside, more than one of the agents believed he actually might be.

His father and Fuyutski were waiting for him on the middle level of the command center, where the three top technicians worked. Shinji ignored his father for the moment, turning to Hyuga Makoto instead.

"Is Misao all right?" he asked. "What about Asuka and Rei?"

"Yes. The medical ward reports that all the other pilots are little banged up, but they'll all be fine," Hyuga answered.

Gendo turned and glared at the technician. Even through his glasses, the force of that glare alone was enough to make Hyuga wilt visibly. Clearly, Gendo hadn't wanted Shinji to know whether his efforts had been in vain or not.

"Pilot Ikari," Gendo said once it was obvious that Hyuga was suitably terrified, turning back to look at his son.

Shinji met his father's eyes, unflinching. The man no longer seemed as imposing at he once had, now that Shinji had defeat him. "Commander Ikari."

"You exhibited blatant insubordination in disobeying my orders and attempting to rescue Unit Three's pilot on your own initiative," Gendo said.

"And you tried to use my hands to murder my best friend," Shinji spat. "I can't believe I ever thought there might be more to you than the old bastard I know you are."

Gendo clenched his fists. Nearly losing Unit One, and thus Yui, had shaken him to the core of his very being. "Threatening to self-destruct Unit One was inexcusable—"

"But your callous disregard for the life of one the pilots was just fine," Shinji sneered. "Activating an unfinished autopilot system because I wasn't doing exactly what you told me to do was perfectly acceptable. God, I'll never understand how Mother was ever able to see you as anything more than the monster you are."

Gendo's self restraint suddenly snapped, and he lashed out with his fist and punched Shinji. Caught by surprise, the Third Child went falling to the ground. The bridge techs gasped. Even Fuyutski and the Section Two agents still present looked surprised.

Shinji staggered to his feet. Gendo had busted his lip open, and blood was pouring freely from the wound. Shinji touched it and then examined his bloodied fingers with a sort of numb fascination.

Then he smirked. "You know, if this leaves a scar, then every time I look at it, I'll always remember the day I beat you."

If looks could kill, Shinji would have dropped dead on the spot from the murderous glare Gendo was giving him. Yet even in his enraged state, Gendo realized that short of marching down to the medical ward and putting a bullet in the Fourth Child's skull, there was nothing he could do to take his son's victory away from him.

"Pilot Ikari," Gendo said, "as punishment for your act of insubordination, I am hereby sentencing you to solitary confinement. You will remain in the detention block until I decide upon a more suitable set of consequences for you."

Shinji snorted. "You're sending me to my room? How unusually parental of you, Father."

Gendo's fist clenched again.

"Don't push it, Ikari," Fuyutski warned.

The Vice Commander deliberately left which Ikari he was addressing ambiguous, and, to his relief, both father and son seemed to check themselves. At least, Gendo didn't strike Shinji again, and Shinji didn't further provoke Gendo.

"Take him away," Gendo ordered the Section Two agents.

* * *

When Misao opened her eyes, the first thing that greeted her was the sight of a ceiling in NERV Medical, bathed in pale blue light like everything else in the ward. Her thoughts felt fuzzy at first, like her mind was wrapped in cotton, but she was still surprised that she was seeing _anything_ after what had happened.

"I'm alive?" she whispered.

"Yes," Rei answered.

"Well, great to have you back with us in the land of the living, Katsuragi," Kaji said cheerfully, but Misao knew him well enough to be able to detect the anxiety beneath his jovial tone.

Misao rubbed her eyes and sat up, ignoring the way her whole body screamed in protest as she did so. Rei was sitting by one side of her bed and Kaji by the other. The First Child was wearing several bandages, though nothing near what she'd had on when the Third Angel had struck.

"What happened?" she asked. "I remember getting inside the EVA. It almost activated, I think. After that, it's all blank."

"EVA Unit Three was possessed by an Angel," Rei explained. "It did not make it presence known until the EVA was activated."

Misao's eyes widened, and she suddenly remembered how everything in the plug had died, including the lights, and how it had started moving quite independantly of her.

Then the fact that there had in fact been an Angel battle sunk in, and she suddenly registered the absence of someone she would have expected to be at her bedside. A wave of dread swept over her. "Where's Shinji?" she demanded.

Neither Rei nor Kaji answered immediately, and Misao felt fear intensify as her mind began to suggest the worst possible reasons for his absence. "What happened to him?" she asked, voice frantic. "Where is he? Was he hurt? Tell me!"

"Misato, calm down," Kaji said soothingly, his usual joking demeanor now completely gone. "Shinji's all right, he was less banged up than you, in fact."

"Then where is he?" Misao asked, her fears only slightly receding at his reassurances.

"Commander Ikari had Shinji placed into solitary confinement immediately after the battle for insubordination," Rei answered.

"Insubordination?" Misao echoed, her fellow pilot's explanation taking her by surprise. "Wha…what did Shinji do?"

"He ignored repeated orders from Commander Ikari to cease attempting to rescue you and destroy the Angel," Rei said.

"I believe his exact words were 'fuck you and your orders, you miserable bastard. I am going to save her or I am going to die trying,'" Kaji added dryly.

"Shinji said _that_?" Misao asked, incredulous. "To his _father_?"

"He did," Rei confirmed. "In response, Commander Ikari disconnected Shinji's links to EVA and activated the Dummy System. Shinji retaliated by arming Unit One's self destruct and threatening to use it if control of the EVA wasn't returned to him. Commander Ikari gave in to his demand, and Shinji was able to rescue you."

"My god," Misao breathed. "Unit Three?"

"Shinji tore it to pieces and scattered it across the Greater Matsushiro area," Kaji answered.

"When will Shinji be released?" Misao asked.

"Commander Ikari stated that Shinji will remain in solitary confinement until he devises a more suitable punishment," Rei said. "He is allowed no visitors."

Misao lay back down, feeling overwhelmed by what she had just learned. No one had ever done something so courageous on her behalf. Even her father's heroic final actions paled in comparison to what Shinji had done for her.

She had never expected that to happen, never expected that anyone could or would do something more gallant for her than what her father had done fifteen years ago in Antarctica. Yet Shinji Ikari had indisputably done it.

Shinji was like some hero of legend, riding in on a giant robot instead of a white horse. She was far from the fair maiden, however.

"Why did he do it?" she whispered. "I don't deserve it."

Kaji smiled. "I think Shinji would disagree with you on that, Katsuragi," he said. "We'll leave you alone so you can get some rest."

They left the hospital room. Misao lay back on her bed and stared up at the ceiling. "Shinji…"

* * *

"I hope you're satisfied with yourself, Ikari," Fuyutski said. "You finally found out what drives your son."

Gendo didn't reply. Fuyutski opened up one of the drawers in Gendo's desk and removed a small bottle of brandy and a glass. The old professor didn't normally drink, but after witnessing recent events, he felt he may need to start. Gendo didn't comment as his former teacher helped himself to a glass of his booze, except to pull out another glass for himself, which Fuyutski filled.

The old professor couldn't help but notice that Gendo's hand was shaking, though whether it was rage or the aftereffects of his fear for the container of Yui's soul, Fuyutski wasn't sure.

"What do you intend to do now?" the Vice Commander asked after draining his glass and then refilling it.

Gendo stared at the brown liquid in his glass for a long moment before answering. "We must reassert control over the Third," he stated.

Fuyutski arched an eyebrow. "And how do you intend to do that?"

Gendo again took his time answering, allowing himself a gulp of his drink before he spoke. "The Third Child found the lever that can be used to control me today," he said. "Fortunately, there are gaps in his knowledge. He knows that I buckled under the pressure he applied, but he does not understand _why_. And in doing what he did, he at last exposed the lever that can be used to control _him_."

"But what do you intend to _do_?" Fuyutski pressed, disturbed by the lack of specifics Gendo was presenting.

"I will leave him sitting in the dark for a while," Gendo said, "to allow his blood to cool. Then, I will show him that he cannot protect the Fourth from me, unless he follows my orders."

Fuyutski suddenly didn't want specifics from Gendo any longer. There was a dark undertone in his voice, quite unlike the Commander's usual air of cold menace.

"Ikari, whatever you're thinking about doing, stop," Fuyutski ordered in a stern voice he hadn't used on Gendo Ikari since the young man had been an undergraduate in his class.

"Excuse me?" Gendo asked, eyebrows rising fractionally.

"You are thinking about revenge as much as you're thinking about getting the scenario back on track right now," Fuyutski said flatly. "Acting on whatever plan you're concocting at the moment will be counterproductive at best, and you'll regret it later."

Gendo was silent for a moment. "What would you have me do, Sensei?"

_Now that is the question, isn't it?_ Fuyutski thought, silently acknowledging that the Third Child had put Gendo in a _very_ delicate position.

It wasn't bad enough that Shinji had made a major—and successful—challenge to Gendo's authority. The Third Child had done what most NERV scientists had believed to be impossible by achieving a stable one to one synchronization ratio, which muddled the already complicated situation even further. If Gendo tried to replace Shinji with Misao as the primary pilot of Unit One, or if he even left Shinji in confinement for any significant length of time, then there would soon be hell to pay. Even without the barest shred of proof that the Third Child could duplicate the feat he'd just performed, the Committee, the UN and the Japanese government would all start screeching at Gendo to take the phenomenally talented pilot off the bench, on the grounds that the fate of the world was at stake.

Of course, even Fuyutski wouldn't argue that Gendo could allow Shinji off with a slap on the wrist, but they had precious few ways of effectively punishing the Third Child that didn't involve brutally hurting the Fourth Child.

"Wait," Fuyutski said.

"Excuse me?"

"Wait," Fuyutski repeated. "Allow _your_ blood to cool, then devise a means of reasserting control over the Third. You have time. I think the world at large would be shocked if you _didn't_ place the Third Child in confinement for at least a few days."

"Very well," Gendo relented, finally placing his glass down on his desk and sitting down. "Please, order Technical Division One to remove the self destruct mechanism from Unit One."

Fuyutski recognized the dismissal for what it was, but for the first time in a long time, he felt compelled to speak his mind to Gendo, regardless of what the likely results of doing so were.

"You should consider thinking on things besides control," Fuyutski said.

Gendo looked up, and while most people wouldn't have seen the annoyance on his face, Fuyutski did. "Whatever do you mean, Sensei?"

"Your son loves her, as you love Yui. You should allow them to enjoy what little time that's left together, if at all possible," Fuyutski stated.

Gendo snorted derisively. "Thank you for your input, Sensei."

Fuyutski arched an eyebrow but left without making any further comment. Once he was safely in the hallway outside Gendo's office, he shook his head in a gesture of quiet disgust. He had never truly realized the extent of Gendo Ikari's arrogance until now.

To be sure, Gendo was not a man that anyone would describe as humble. He believed that he could move Heaven and Earth. But the thing of it was, he _could_. This, however…

_He truly believes that no other man could ever love a woman as much as he loves Yui,_ Fuyutski thought.

Somehow, the old professor thought that Gendo might be setting himself up for another surprise that was as unpleasant as the one he'd experienced this day.

* * *

Misao knew that she probably shouldn't be on her feet mere hours after having woken up in the medical ward. In fact, there was no "probably" about it. She didn't know what had happened to her inside Unit Three's plug after she'd blacked out, but it apparently hadn't been a smooth or pleasant ride. Not if how tempting the idea of laying down in the hallway and going to sleep was any indication.

Still, she soldiered on without even a thought of retreating back to her room in the ward just yet. Finally, after a journey that felt like it had been at least fifty kilometers, she found her target.

"Kaji," she said, finally finding the unshaven man sipping coffee by a cluster of vending machines.

The Special Inspector was genuinely surprised to see her. "Katsuragi? Shouldn't you be resting?"

"Yes," she answered.

Misao left the "Duh!" unspoken but heavily implied, and in a way she probably couldn't have if she were still in her 29 year old body, she frankly admitted to herself. Not that she really cared; she was far too tired and irritable to play nice.

Kaji, fortunately, seemed bemused by the attitude the pseudo-teenager was giving him. "What can I do for you, Katsuragi?" he asked.

"I want to talk to Shinji," Misao said.

"And you couldn't get past the Section Two guys guarding his cell, I take it?" Kaji asked, even though he already knew the answer.

"No. Ikari apparently put the fear of god into them," Misao grumbled. "I tried threatening them, bribing them…hell, I even tried _seducing_ them, and I got nowhere."

Kaji arched an eyebrow. "You tried to seduce two full grown men?"

"I didn't have any other options I could see at that point," she said defensively. "So are you going to help me see him, or not?"

"What makes you think I can?" Kaji asked.

Misao's eyes narrowed. "Don't play dumb with me, Kaji. I know you didn't come to Japan just so you could take a do-nothing Special Inspector job and fend off Asuka's advances. I'm sure you've been poking around and probably making friends of people who can help you poke around, or at least look the other way while you're at it. Probably more than a few people in Section Two."

"Hmm. Here's a question. If I get you in to talk to Shinji, what will you say to him?" Kaji asked.

The question took Misao by surprise. "I…I'm not sure," she confessed.

Kaji didn't respond, other than to silently give Misao a look.

"Please, Kaji," she said. "This means a lot to me."

He sighed softly. "No promises, Katsuragi," he said. "And if I do manage something, it probably won't be for a few days, at the earliest."

Misao nodded. "Arigato."

Kaji drank the last of his coffee and threw away the can. "I'd suggest that you head back to the medical ward now," he said. "If you'll excuse me, there's someplace I need to be."

He was almost out of sight before Misao's conscience got the best of her. "Kaji."

He stopped and turned to face her. "Yes?"

"Maybe, after this blows over, you, Rits, and me could all go to the Pulse together," Misao said. "For old time's sake."

He grinned slightly. "I appreciate the offer, Katsuragi, but somehow I don't think the nostalgia would be worth it."

* * *

Though Maya was not a Christian, she had heard bits of biblical verse here and there while working at NERV, and now some of it kept echoing in her mind as she surveyed the blood soaked landscape.

_Though I may walk in the valley of the shadow of death…_

She knew the rest of the line, but it didn't seem to be appropriate at the moment, not with the dismembered parts of Unit Three scattered everywhere and huge splatters of blood still covering much of the landscape.

"This is horrible," she breathed.

"It could have been far worse than it was," Ritsuko said, walking up next to her. "The cage at the test facility was unmanned, so there were far fewer casualties at the Matsurshiro base than there would have been otherwise. And Shinji managed to save Misato. You know, if someone told me a few months ago that the kid Misato brought into NERV while the Third Angel was attacking would do _this_, I probably would have laughed right in their face."

Maya nodded. "Are you all right, sempai?"

The blond scientist gingerly touched the bandage that was wrapped around her head. "I'll live. What about you?" she asked, gesturing to Maya's arm, which was in a sling.

"Not injured enough to be able to curl up in bed and let someone else do my job. Not without feeling guilty about it, anyway," Maya joked weakly. "Has there been any new developments with Shinji?"

Ritsuko shook her head. "No. Last I heard he was still in the brig," she said. "I suspect he'll be in there a while, or at least as long as the Commander can afford to let NERV's best pilot rot. Shinji was obviously very satisfied with himself, and the Commander can be very vindictive. I seriously doubt he'll let Shinji out without an apology, not after he was forced to so publicly give in to his son's demand."

Maya shook her head. "If only I'd been in command, I wouldn't have tried to stop him from rescuing Misao. They should have pinned a medal on the kid's chest, not thrown him in jail."

"Virtually all of NERV agrees with you, I think," Ritsuko said. "The Section Two guys who were ordered to take Shinji to solitary confinement took him to the medical ward first to get the cut the Commander gave him looked at, even though they hadn't been told to."

"You should contact the authorities," Maya said, feeling her ire at Gendo rise. "Commander Ikari assaulted Shinji, and you are his legal guardian after all."

"You know how far that would go, Maya," Ritsuko chided.

Maya sighed. "Yeah."

* * *

Going to school as though everything was normal after the events of the previous day felt very wrong, but the doctors in the medical ward had pronounced her healthy early that morning, and Misao knew that Ritsuko was too busy with the clean up from the battle to even consider calling her in sick anyway. So, with little choice in the matter, Misao donned the green and white school uniform and headed off.

She had to walk to school alone, since Asuka had left the apartment before she'd even gotten there. Misao didn't really care. At the moment, the Second Child was far from her top concern.

"Hey, Misao-san!" someone called the moment she walked into the schoolyard.

She looked up to see Toji and Kensuke approaching her and sighed. She wasn't in the mood to teasingly flirt with them like she usually did, but then again, they didn't look like they were in the mood to make their usual, clumsy passes at her, either.

"Hi, guys," she greeted.

"What happened the other day?" Toji asked. "You, Ayanami, and the Devil are all banged up, and Shinji's not here at all."

"Is he all right?" Kensuke asked worriedly. "Has something happened to him?"

"The Commander threw Shinji into the brig for saving my life," Misao explained bitterly.

"What? B-But why would he do that?" Kensuke asked.

"Because he's an asshole," Misao grumbled, crossing her arms. "I'm sorry, but I really can't tell you more than that. It's classified."

It actually wasn't, at least not as far as she knew, but Misao didn't want to discuss why Shinji was languishing down in a cold, dark cell. She felt like she was to blame for his fate, at least partially.

"Can you at least tell us when they'll let him go?" Kensuke asked.

Misao shook her head. "I don't know when that will be. You see…"

She trailed off when she heard someone else say Shinji's name. Misao looked up and saw Asuka speaking to Hikari. Toji and Kensuke, not sure why she'd stopped speaking, opened their mouths to say something, but Misao held up a hand for silence as she pricked her ears. Her eyes narrowed as she heard enough to discern the gist of what the Second Child was saying.

"Excuse me," she said to Toji and Kensuke, and went stalking off toward the red haired girl.

Toji and Kensuke just traded a look as they watched her walk away from them, wondering if they should feel sympathy for the Devil.

"Honestly," Asuka said to Hikari, "I really don't think the idiot will be able to talk his way out of this one. He really flipped his lid this time, just went completely crazy."

"Asuka…" Hikari said, looking meaningfully over her friend's shoulder.

Asuka got the message and turned around, then recoiled back a step when she found that Misao was _right_ behind her, looking steaming mad. "Mein Gott!" Asuka exclaimed, startled. "What do you want, Misao?"

"Don't you dare talk about Shinji like that," Misao warned, glaring daggers at the Second Child. "Don't you _dare_."

"Ha! Worried about your boyfriend?" Asuka taunted, crossing her arms. "The idiot deserved what he got, going off and disobeying orders for glory!"

"He did it to save my life!" Misao shouted, getting the attention of everyone in the schoolyard but not caring in the slightest. "Shinji's never piloted EVA for glory! That's you! That's always been you!"

_You have grown to need praise as much as you need water and air,_ the voice of the Twelfth Angel echoed through Asuka's consciousness, giving her shivers.

"Shut up! You're acting like it's my fault that the idiot's in the brig!" Asuka snapped.

"Maybe if the Angel hadn't taken out Unit Two in under ten seconds, he wouldn't be!" Misao countered.

Asuka's eyes flashed dangerously, and she might have struck Misao if the class rep hadn't chosen that moment to step in between them. "Stop it, you two," Hikari commanded firmly. "You're making a scene. Whatever fight you have at work, leave it there."

Misao and Asuka continued to glare silently at one another. The tension was only broken when the bell rang, and they had to head to class.

* * *

_A perfect one to one sync ratio with the EVA. Mein Gott, but how did the idiot do it?_ Asuka brooded while she sat in class, ignoring the teacher's usual Second Impact lecture. _I'm supposed to be the best! Me! I'm the one who trained for ten years! I'm the prodigy! So why is that idiot showing me up at every turn?_

She was more than a little annoyed at the way Shinji had saved the day again, and in such dramatic fashion. In fact, annoyed didn't even begin to describe it. She was furious.

_You live for the praise of others. It is the reason you pilot EVA, and the reason why you have grown to detest Shinji Ikari._

The pencil she was holding snapped abruptly as her grip tightened. She hadn't been able to rid herself of the memory of what had happened to her inside the Twelfth Angel, no matter how hard she tried.

She shook her head. _It was just hallucinations created by my oxygen deprived brain, nothing more._ She told herself sternly. _I didn't ride on a zeppelin at sunset, didn't speak to a four-year-old version of myself, and certainly I certainly wasn't rescued by Mama!_

As usual, a small part of her refused to believe that.

An instant message box suddenly popped up on her laptop screen, pulling Asuka from her confused thoughts.

**ClassRep:** Asuka, are you all right?

**Red Baroness: **Yeah, I'm fine.

She hesitated a moment, quickly reaching a decision.

**Red Baroness:** Can I sleep over at your place tonight? I don't think it would be a good idea for me to stay in the same apartment with Misao tonight.

* * *

Misao honestly couldn't care less that Asuka decided to sleep over at Hikari's place that night. In fact, she was actually quite glad that the abrasive Second Child decided to remove herself from the apartment for a while. Misao was so angry and frustrated that she honestly worried she might throttle Asuka if the red head didn't shut up about Shinji.

She was, however, mildly annoyed that if Hikari hadn't told her about Asuka's plans, she wouldn't know where her charge was at the moment. Misao let it go, however. She had far worse things to be mad about.

"I can't believe that bastard Commander Ikari," she muttered to herself for the hundredth as moved about her kitchen, preparing dinner for herself.

The kettle whistled and she poured herself a glass of green tea. It tasted unusually bitter to her tongue.

She wanted a beer. She wanted a beer so much that it hurt. Not since she'd had to stop cold turkey thanks to her transformation had she wanted a beer this much, but there wasn't a drop in the apartment, and she couldn't legally buy any.

_Maybe I could find some kid who's just turned legal and get him to buy me a six pack. I bet all I'd have to do is bat my lashes at him a little,_ she considered.

Misao shook her head. She didn't want to stoop to such a thing. Besides, she knew Shinji wouldn't like her getting drunk, and after what he'd done for her, continuing to abstain from alcohol was the _least_ she could do for him.

Her microwave beeped and Misao pulled out the cup of instant ramen. She reached into it with her chopsticks without really thinking about it and shoved some of the noodles into her mouth. Her eyes widened as the stuff made contact with her tongue.

"Yuck! Was I always this terrible a cook?" she asked no in particular.

Apparently, either her transformation or the long period of eating only Shinji's cooking had caused many of the taste buds she'd systematically killed off with her special blend of spices to regenerate. And, though she wouldn't know it until a few hours later when indigestion struck, her "iron stomach" had softened up, too.

"Wark!"

Misao looked down to see Pen-Pen standing by her feet. She gave the waterfowl a pet on the head. "Hey, boy," she said. "You miss Shinji, don't you?"

"Wark…"

"Yeah, same here," Misao said with a sigh. "I wish they'd let me see him. I would thank him for what he did and tell him that I wouldn't think less of him if he begged the Commander to let him go. I just want him back. But when I asked, Section Two told me the Commander had explicitly ordered that I not be allowed to visit him!"

"Wark!"

Misao smiled, glad that Pen-Pen shared in her indignation. "Come on, Pen-Pen, I'll find you something to eat."

"Wark!"

* * *

Misao and Asuka studiously avoided making contact with each other the next day at school, both knowing they might end up in a fist fight if they attempted to speak to each other.

All day long, Misao couldn't concentrate on the lessons at all. Her mind kept wandering to Shinji, all alone in a pitch dark solitary confinement cell. Or she would imagine what his struggles against the Thirteenth Angel to save her must have been like.

_Oh well, it's not like my grades can get any lower anyway,_ she thought with a sigh as Hikari finally dismissed them for the day.

"Hey, Misao-san," Kensuke said, approaching her while everyone was packing up. "Want to come with us to the arcade?"

"We know you're concerned about Shinji," Toji added. "We are, too. But just sitting around worrying isn't going to do any good."

Maybe they were right, Misao thought. There really was nothing she could do about the situation at the moment, so just fretting wouldn't help anything. She could play Crisis Situation 6 and pretend that the aliens she was shooting were really the Commander.

"Okay," she said. "I need to blow off some steam, anyway."

"Great!" Kensuke said. "Let's go."

The trio headed off for the arcade they often frequented, Shinji's absence growing more and more conspicuous with each step they took in silence. Toji and Kensuke wanted to ask for details about what had happened for their friend, Misao could sense it. But she didn't want to talk about it, didn't want to explain how Shinji had acted so heroically for her only to be punished by his father. Mercifully, the two boys had the tact not to press her.

They were right outside the arcade when Misao's cell phone went off. Before she could even take it out of her bag, the Angel alarms began to blare.

"Damn," Misao said. "Guess the trip to the arcade's off. I have to go. Be safe, boys."

With that, she began running toward the Geofront, already answering her phone and telling Section Two where they could pick her up.

* * *

"All personnel, go to first stage alert," Makoto ordered. "Prepare for surface to air interception!"

"Target status?" Fuyutski demanded.

"It's broken through our perimeter!" Aoba reported. "The Komagatake Defense line has been shattered!"

Outside, the bulky form of the Fourteenth Angel floated slowly into view. The instant it was in range of the city's intercept system, every available artillery battery opened up, unleashing trillions of yen worth of ballistics at the hostile.

It was all for naught. The Angel shrugged off all the state-of-the-art missiles and shells as though they were no more than mere gnats. Then its eyes in its skull like face flashed, and suddenly a cross shaped explosion erupted in Tokyo-3.

"The first eighteen layers of armor have been breached!" Makoto reported. "Unbelievable! Eighteen layers in one shot!"

The door to the command center slid open with a hiss and Maya burst inside. "We can't deploy the EVA's fast enough to engage the enemy on the surface. Position Unit Two for combat inside the Geofront! Asuka will snipe the target as soon as it breaks into the Geofront," she commanded. "Somebody go to the brig and get Shinji, we—"

"No," Gendo said sternly. "We will sortie Unit One with Pilot Katsuragi in this engagement."

"Sir, I must object!" Maya said, turning around to face Gendo. "Given the obvious strength of this Angel, we need all our very best pilots in combat. Pilot Katsuragi—"

"Your objection is noted," Gendo interrupted coldly. "Pilot Ikari is to remain in the brig. Send Katsuragi."

"Yes, sir," Maya said, clearly not pleased.

Fuyutski leaned down by Gendo and whispered in his ear. "Ikari, what are you _doing_?"

"Simply taking advantage of the opportunity fate has given me," Gendo answered.

"The Committee won't like this," Fuyutski said.

"So long as we deliver victory, the old men won't be able to do anything but complain," Gendo replied.

"That's quite a gamble, Ikari."

"Yes, but it's less of a risk than allowing the Third Child to escape punishment because he's become to useful to replace," Gendo replied.

Fuyutski strongly suspected that at least part of Gendo's reason for doing this was to get back at the Third Child, but he knew better than to suggest as much.

"Reset EVA Unit One for Misato," Ritsuko said to Sakura. "Load her RAM into it and restart the system."

"Yes, ma'am," Sakura said quietly as she got to work.

"Pilot Katsuragi is suited up and en route to the cages," Aoba reported. "Unit One can be deployed in 120 seconds."

"What's Unit Zero's status?" Maya asked.

"It's in the AT field null zone," Ritsuko answered, "but the left arm still hasn't been reattached."

"Then it's all up to Asuka and Misao," Maya said.

* * *

_I wanted this is so damn much, but not like this,_ Misao thought. She knew that if it wasn't for her, Commander Ikari would have had no choice but to let Shinji out of his cell. Instead she was being used an instrument to keep him trapped alone in the dark. It was a bitter way to achieve her ambition indeed.

Unit One's entry plug began to fill with LCL around her, and for once she didn't make a face when she was forced to inhale the stuff. She barely paid any attention to the chatter of the technicians over the radio.

"Entry plug is secure."

"Charging LCL."

"Commencing A-10 nerve connections. All systems read green. Pilot sync ratio is 76 percent."

"Launch EVA Unit One!" Maya commanded.

Misao grimaced under the force of the acceleration as Unit One went rocketing upwards. Fortunately, the trip was a short one, and in seconds she had arrived inside the Geofront. Unit Two was standing nearby, standing in a cluster of guns that made it look like a weapon's cache had vomited around it.

"Don't worry, Misao. I can take care of this Angel, even without the Invincible Shinji here," Asuka said. "All you need to do is cover me."

Misao sighed. "Considering what happened the last time you told Unit One to cover you, I hope you don't expect that to fill me with confidence," she said, remembering the debacle after the first battle against the Seventh Angel.

"Knock it off, you two!" Maya spoke up before Asuka could retort. "The Angel will break through the final armor layers any second! Pay attention! Misao, pick up a rifle!"

"Yes, ma'am!" Misao and Asuka snapped as one.

Unit One grabbed a gatling gun just as the roof of the Geofront was consumed in an orange fireball. Instants later, the Angel began to descend from the plume of flame.

Asuka and Misao opened fire at once, but the tanks shells that their firearms were loaded with bounced harmlessly off the Angel's armored hide. The beast didn't even bother to speed up its rate of descent as it continued to approach.

"Damn you!" Asuka yelled as her first rifle clicked empty. She discarded it and grabbed two new ones. "Next."

Misao's gatling gun was out of ammo a moment later. She dropped it to the ground and picked up an EVA sized AK-47 and began to unload the clip on the Angel.

The renewed hail of gunfire again failed to cause any noticeable damage to the target.

"I'm neutralizing its AT field, aren't I?" Asuka shouted. "Why won't you collapse damn you!"

Asuka's second set of rifles ran out of ammunition and she traded them for a pair of rocket launchers this time. "This can't be happening! I can't lose again! Not again!" the Second Child shouted in frustration as she squeezed the triggers again and again.

Misao ignored Asuka's rants, throwing down her gun once it, too, was spent. She picked up a progressive spear and flung it at the Angel as hard as she could. Its struck the Angel near the skull like face and bounced off an instant after the first of Asuka's rockets bathed it in orange fire.

At last, the Angel stopped. Its thin, stunted arms suddenly seemed to unfurl, becoming much longer.

Before either pilot could react, they had whipped out and sliced Unit Two's arms clean off. Blue blood gushed out of the wounds in twin high pressure jets. The Second Child shrieked in agony, caught entirely surprise by the vicious attack and the excrutiating pain that followed it.

"Asuka!" Misao cried out.

The Second Child responded with a flurry of German profanities, her pain and rage taking over her mind, dispelling any conscious thought. She felt only the driving need for _revenge_ as she threw Unit Two onto motion, charging the Angel.

"Asuka, stop!" Misao yelled.

"Sever the pilot's nerve connections!" Maya ordered. "Do it now!"

The Angel lashed out with one of its arms, decapitating Unit Two and sending the armored head flying across the Geofront. Misao gasped in horror, not certain whether or not the bridge techs had been fast enough to save the Second Child.

Then, the Angel turned its attention to Unit One. Its arms lashed out again.

Misao threw Unit One into a roll, hoping to evade the attack, but to no avail. One of the Angel's arms encircled Unit One's torso several times over and lifted the great war machine, which weighed in excess of thousands of tons, smoothly into the air.

With a thought from Misao, Unit One's left shoulder pylon opened. The EVA grabbed its progressive knife, the weapon coming to life with a joyful buzzing sound in its wielder's hand.

Before Misao could bring the knife down on the Angel's arm, the monster shook the EVA like an enormous rag doll. The knife flew from Unit One's hand and went spinning into the forest inside the Geofront. Satisfied that its enemy was now unarmed, the Angel stopped shaking Unit One and began to squeeze it.

Misao screamed as phantom pressure suddenly felt as though it was about to shatter her ribcage.

* * *

Back in the command center, all hell was breaking loose as klaxons blared, and every screen flashed red warning messages.

"The armor on Unit One's torso is starting to crack!" Aoba said.

"The pilot's life signs are becoming erratic!" Makoto added.

"Damn it," Maya swore.

_I knew we should have sent Shinji out in Unit One instead,_ she added silently. _If only Commander Ikari hadn't decided to go over my head._

"Send Rei out in Unit Zero," Gendo ordered, his voice somehow cutting through all the noise and the chaos with ease.

"But, sir, it's not ready yet!" Maya protested, whirling around to face him.

"Do you have a better idea, Major Ibuki?" Gendo asked coldly.

"No, sir," Maya admitted, turning back around. "Deploy Unit Zero."

* * *

Just when Misao was certain that she would black out from the pain, the Angel dropped Unit One to the ground. Misao groaned and clutched her stomach, unable to focus on anything for a second besides the agony.

She looked up to see why the Angel had decided to release her, and her eyes suddenly widened when she saw Unit Zero running toward the Angel, carrying some kind of canister in its remaining hand. She frowned, wondering what it was. Then, realization struck like a slap in the face.

"An N2 mine!" Misao gasped, opening a channel to Unit Zero. "Rei! Don't do it! You'll be killed!"

"If I die, I can be replaced," Rei replied calmly.

Unit Zero slammed into the hexagonal wall of orange light that was the Angel's AT field, but this could not deter the First Child for long. Not when she had Unit Zero and its own AT field at her disposal. She pushed her EVA's single arm through the center of the shield and slammed the N2 mine into the Angel's core.

"AT field full power!" Misao shouted and closed her eyes as the world around her turned white.

She could feel her EVA rattling from the force of the blast, but not even atomic flame could hope to breach an AT field. The shaking stopped, and a few seconds later she dared to open her eyes.

Unit Zero had collapsed to the ground, but the Angel was still standing.

For some reason, this caused a dam inside Misao to break and a torrent of pure rage flooded out. How dare the Angel weather Rei's suicidal attack? How dare it render the sacrifice the First Child was prepared to make meaningless? The Angels had committed offenses without number against humanity, as well as offenses against her personally. Misao was going to take some revenge on behalf of both her species and herself. She forced Unit One back to its feet, ignoring the pain that had immobilized her mere moments ago, barely even registering the existence of the pain any longer.

"Your kind killed my father," she said. "Your kind killed three billion people. Your kind are the sole reason EVA exists, the reason Shinji and Asuka and Rei have suffered so much."

Apparently not interested in hearing the charges against it listed off, the Angel lashed out with its arms again. Unit One jumped smoothly out of the way, grabbing the Angel's left arm in its hand.

"I will kill you for all this!" Misao screamed.

The armor covering Unit One's jaw opened, and the Evangelion bit down on the Angel's arm, easily severing the thin appendage. Unit One tossed away the part of the Angel's arm it held like so much rubbish.

Before the Angel could react, Unit One leapt into the air, soaring toward the Angel. The EVA's armored fist slammed into the Angel's skull like face with an ungodly amount of force, sending the Angel flying backwards. The monster landed flat on its back.

"That was for Dad!" Misao yelled as Unit One ran over to its fallen but still living foe. The Evangelion raised its fist again and slammed into the Angel's core again and again. "And that's for Shinji! And that one's for Asuka! And one for Rei!"

Misao continued to rain blows down upon the Angel's core, her worries about her fellow pilots leaving her as she did so. At that moment, she simply didn't _care_ that Shinji was languishing in a solitary confinement, or that Asuka and Rei could be badly injured or even worse. Her mind was too consumed by primal, gleeful hatred, because this—beating the life out of one of the monsters that had killed her father with her own two hands, or hands that felt like they were her own—was what she had wanted since that terrible day. It was the reason she'd joined the military, and had worked so hard and sacrificed so much to rise through the ranks. But commanding the operations to destroy the Angels had never done it for her, not like this, not like personally unleashing all her hate and pain on the Angels.

Knowing that vengeance was finally hers at long last was sweeter than she could have ever imagined.

"And there's another one for Dad!" Misao yelled as she slammed Unit One's fist into the Angel's core again, creating a spider web pattern of cracks in the ruby sphere. "And this one…"

Unit One raised its fist for what Misao was hoping would be the blow to completely shatter the Angel's core.

"…this one's for me."

The entry plug darkened abruptly around her, just before she could deliver the lethal punch.

"What?!" Misao gasped in horror, turning to look at the power readout screen.

Her eyes widened as she took in the sight of four red zeroes, which flashed for a second before the countdown timer went out with everything else in her plug. She hadn't even realized that she'd been on internal power.

_The umbilical cable must've been destroyed when Rei blew that N2 mine!_ Misao thought. _Damn it! This cannot be happening! I was so close!_

She felt the EVA begin to move as the Angel took advantage of its suddenly lifeless opponent. The sensation brought back unpleasant memories of Unit Three's activation.

The plug rocked as the Angel fired its energy blast at Unit One, obliterating most of the armor covering the EVA's abdomen and exposing the dark red core beneath. Misao's world began to shudder as the Angel slammed its remaining arm into the EVA's core again and again. The entry plug around her began to crack.

"Move, damn you! Move!" Misao screamed hysterically as she pulled on her useless controls. "Move! If you don't move, everyone will die! The Angel will destroy all of humanity! Shinji will die!"

_**THUMP THUMP**_

Misao immediately fell silent and looked around, trying to locate the source of the sound which seemed to be the beating of an enormous heart. She could find nothing responsible for it.

_**THUMP THUMP…THUMP THUMP…THUMP THUMP**_

The Fourth Child suddenly looked at her hands, seeing that the gloves which covered them had become slack and empty. She threw back her head and screamed.

* * *

Unit One's dark eyes suddenly came back to life with a blaze of unholy white light, the sleeping giant within Evangelion at last truly awakening. The behemoth raised its enormous foot and unleashed a savage kick upon its foe, sending the Angel flying backwards like the world's largest rag doll. The violet titan stood and the armor holding its jaw shut snapped open, displaying not the blunt pieces of metal that usually occupied Unit One's jaw, but a mouthful of real, pointed teeth.

The Evangelion threw its head back and unleashed an inhuman roar that shook the Geofront and the entire city atop it.

"This is impossible!" Sakura shouted, typing furiously. "My readings say that Misao's sync ratio is at 400 percent!"

Ritsuko leaned heavily against one of the consoles to steady herself. "It's finally happening," she said grimly. "It's aware."

"My god," Maya breathed.

The Angel had managed to stop its backwards skid, but its power was nothing compared to the awakened Evangelion. Unit One extended its AT field forward with enough destructive power to make an N2 mine look like a firecracker in comparison. The Angel's AT field was shattered like an eggshell and deep cuts burst open all over its body, red blood gushing forth. It fell to the ground, critically wounded from that one strike.

EVA Unit One fell to all fours and quickly advanced toward the Angel, moving like the savage beast it was. The Angel made one last attempt to defend itself, its eyes lightning up as it prepared for its energy attack. Unit One simply clamped a hand down on its face and shoved it aside disdainfully.

The EVA stood over its prey for a moment, then it leaned its head down to it.

"It's…it's eating the Angel?" Maya asked, feeling a wave of nausea sweep over her but refusing to retch as she stared at the main screen.

"The S2 organ," Dr. Akagi said, "she's taking it into herself!"

The EVA stood, apparently having consumed all it desired to. The beast roared and several of the armor plates on its back and chest burst off of it.

"It's breaking free!" Akagi wailed.

"Free of what?" Makoto asked.

"Those plates weren't just armor, they were also restraints," Akagi explained. "Those bindings are what allowed us to control it, but now the EVA is removing the web that binds it to our will! The beast inside the EVA is free at last!"

* * *

Outside in the Geofront, a man holding a watering can watched as EVA roared and growled from his place next to his melon patch. His face was grim.

"Misato-chan," he whispered.

He had been hoping that someone or something would kick the proverbial hornet's nest and start a little infighting between NERV and SEELE. He was fresh out of leads to follow so far as gathering information about either organization went, and the fact that his "second job" had become more or less public knowledge wasn't helping matters.

Huge storms might be destructive, but they sometimes unearthed interesting things, after all.

Still, he didn't want to Misato to be the one who had to take the hit to make it happen. Even if he couldn't have her, he still cared for her.

Kaji cast a dark look at NERV headquarters. "I wonder, was this part of your scenario, too, Commander Ikari?" he said. "If so, pray I never find out as much."

* * *

Gendo smiled behind his interwoven fingers as he watched Evangelion Unit One roar and growl on the main monitor. _It is beginning,_ he thought.

The EVA abruptly sank to one knee and became quiet and still. The assembled technicians exchanged looks of confusion. Of all the things they had expected the EVA to do, this was not it, especially after Akagi's horrified exclamations. They'd have been less surprised if Unit One began to destroy headquarters.

"Unit One has gone completely silent," Aoba said slowly. "We're reading no reactions from the EVA."

"Dr. Akagi, please oversee the recovery of Unit One," Gendo said calmly, rising to leave. "Oh, and someone inform Section Two that the Third Child is free to leave, effective immediately."

Akagi and Fuyutski, the only two present besides Gendo himself who knew what had become of the Fourth Child, turned to look at Gendo with appalled expressions. If Gendo noticed them, he didn't show it.

* * *

Author's Notes: Well, the Bastard King has his revenge, and Misao finally piloted Unit One in combat. Shinji, it's safe to say, will not be pleased when they let him out and he discovers what's happened.

A couple of you had suspected that Gendo would move Shinji out of Misao's apartment in retaliation, but personally I doubt how effective that could really be. I mean, unless he makes Section Two actually enforce the move (which given how made of fail Section Two tends to be, is probably impractical), there wouldn't be anything stopping Shinji from unofficially living there anyway. Besides, why go through such complications when the Fourteenth Angel offers Gendo such a good opportunity to try and send Shinji the message that he can't protect Misao from the Bastard King, and that disobedience will be punished? Especially since Gendo has revenge on the brain as much as control at the moment?

zOMG, thanks for the insightful review. In response to the point about the implications of somebody getting younger, Gendo's afraid that if it became possible to duplicate what happened to Misao, one or more members of SEELE might decide Instrumentality isn't such a good idea afterwards and ruin all their plans. He basically ordered Akagi to look like she's trying to figure it out but come up with nothing. It was kind of a throwaway bit where this happened, as I admit I just wanted to quickly sweep this issue under the rug. Also, next chapter will see a lot of introspection from both Shinji and Misao.

As always, thanks to all my readers and reviewers. Now for some fun.

* * *

Omakes

The Empire, er…Gendo Strikes Back (not really)

Darth Bastard panted, sweating running down his face as he held his scarlet lightsaber up in a defensive stance. For too long had he ignored his son while minding his various machinations, and the boy had grown strong in the ways of the Force during that time.

Shinji struck, his weapon turning into a long ribbon of blue light with the speed of his attack. Darth Bastard was barely able to bring his own saber up in time to parry, and the force of the blow sent him staggering backwards several steps.

He took a quick glance behind himself. He was nearly at the edge of the tunnel they were in. Behind it, appropriately enough, lay the giant mystery shaft that the EVA Units had climbed up when the power was out and the Ninth Angel had attacked.

"It's over, Darth," Shinji said, raising his lightsaber. "Surrender!"

"Not yet," Darth Bastard replied. "Before we conclude this duel, I feel that you should know…Shinji, _I_ am your father!"

"Uh, yeah," Shinji said, sweat dropping. "It's not like that was a secret."

"Oh," Darth Bastard replied, feeling deflated.

He'd been hoping that Shinji would go reeling from the shock, and that he could stab his son in chest during that unguarded moment, thus snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

Instead, Shinji attacked with a low strike, neatly slicing Darth Bastard's legs out from under him and sending him tumbling down the shaft.

"Nooooooooooooooo!" Darth Bastard cried as he fell.

* * *

Secret Agent Bird

"Wark!"

Misao looked down to see Pen-Pen standing by her feet. She gave the waterfowl a pet on the head. "Hey, boy," she said. "You miss Shinji, don't you?"

"Wark…"

"Yeah, same here," Misao said with a sigh. "I wish they'd let me see him. I would thank him for what he did and tell him…tell him I love him."

"Wark!"

Misao sighed, then gave her faithful pet a small pat on the head. "Good old, Pen-Pen. I can always talk to you and know you'll never betray my secrets," she said. "Well, I'm going to bed. Hopefully things will look brighter in the morning."

With that she left and headed into her bedroom.

Once he was certain that she gone, Pen-Pen removed the tiny recording device he hid behind his collar and switched it off, preserving Misao's confession of her feelings.

Normally, Pen-Pen took his position as Misao's trusted confidant very seriously, but Shinji had provided him with such excellent meals since his arrival. And really, they'd _both_ be happier for what he was about to do.

It had been a long time since he'd done an infiltration mission. Not since he'd narrowly prevented World War Three from breaking out, really, but he was sure he hadn't lost the knack.

Being a Grandmaster Spy was something you never forgot.

The Mission Impossible theme suddenly seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once all around the penguin as he left the apartment.

* * *

No one noticed Pen-Pen as he stealthily crept through NERV headquarters, despite the music that followed him wherever he went. He was just that good. Indeed, only one person even _heard_ the music before the penguin reached the cell block, and that was because Pen-Pen let him.

"Damn," Kaji commented to no one in particular. "A Grandmaster Spy is around. I wish I could be a Grandmaster Spy. That mysterious music is so damn cool. I'd go for the James Bond theme, though."

Pen-Pen held back a laugh, both at the thought of Kaji ever being his equal and the man's cliché choice of the Bond music.

* * *

At last, Pen-Pen reached the detention block, finding that Shinji's cell was guarded by a pair of Section Two men. The bird finally revealed himself, allowing the two goons to see him.

"Hey, a penguin."

"Judo chop!" Pen-Pen yelled (which, to the humans, sounded a lot like "Wark! Wark!")

Exactly 12 seconds later, the two Section Two guys were writhing on the floor in agony and Pen-Pen was sending his little recording device through the food slot in the door to Shinji's cell.

Shinji looked down at the floor as he heard something slide into his room. Frowning, he groped about the dark room until he finally found the object that had been sent in. By sheer luck, his finger pressed the play button.

"Hey, boy. You miss Shinji, don't you?...Wark!...Yeah, same here. I wish they'd let me see him. I would thank him for what he did and tell him…tell him…"

* * *

"_**YATTA!!!**_" Shinji screamed so loudly that everyone in NERV headquarters could hear him.

Almost outside already, Pen-Pen allowed himself a moment to savor his triumph before he set about completing his escape.


	15. Chapter 15

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

Chapter Fifteen: **Failure/Revelations or "Lazarus! Awaken!"**

_The First Day…_

Shinji had found that the exuberant feelings of triumph and success didn't last long in a dark, cramped cell. Indeed, he guessed that his pleasure at having bested his father in a battle of wills had faded after a couple of hours at most, to be replaced a feeling of creeping dread. The more time that passed, the more certain Shinji became that he would regret mouthing off to the Commander.

Then, after a period of time that felt like an eternity but judging from the number of times he'd been fed was really a couple of days, he heard the tumblers of the large lock that held him trapped turning.

Shinji winced as the door to his tiny cell opened and light poured in. "What is it?" he asked, holding his hands up to shield his eyes. "Is an Angel attacking?"

"No, not anymore," came a voice Shinji didn't recognize. "The Commander's ordered your release."

Shinji felt needles of ice run down his arms and legs, as he took in the implications of those statements. An Angel had attacked, and his father was releasing him despite the fact that he hadn't faked regret over his actions during the battle with the Thirteenth Angel. Those two facts didn't add up to anything good, of that he was certain.

"What happened?" he asked, mouth suddenly dry.

The Section Two agent sighed. "Kid, I think it would be best if you asked Dr. Akagi that question."

* * *

EVA-01 ENTRY PLUG EJECT COMMAND: REFUSED

"It's hopeless," Sakura sighed as she looked at the angry red letters on her screen. "It's not accepting the eject code."

"Try the backup codes," Ritsuko ordered, looking over Sakura's shoulder.

"Also refused," Sakura said after a moment's work at her terminal. "Even a direct circuit isn't getting through."

"But the plug's video monitors are still active," Makoto said. "I'm channeling it to the main screen."

An image of the entry plug appeared on the main monitor, but Misao was nowhere to be found. Her empty plug suit floated lazily in the amber LCL.

"What the hell happened?!"

Everyone turned to see Shinji standing by the doorway and winced. No one in the command center had even noticed him enter. "Where's Misao?" the Third Child demanded frantically.

"She's been taken into the EVA," Ritsuko said softly. "I'm sorry, Shinji."

"Taken into EVA?" Shinji repeated slowly. His expression darkened. "What the hell does that even _mean_?"

"Misao was able to reach a 400 percent sync ratio," Akagi explained. "Her ego borderline collapsed, and her body was broken down into its component chemicals, her consciousness absorbed into the EVA."

"Can you get her back?" Shinji asked, eyes widening in horror.

"I don't know," Akagi said.

Shinji's legs suddenly felt dangerously wobbly, but this must not have been easily apparent, since no one rushed over to help steady him. Either that or everyone was still intimidated by him thanks to his display during the battle against the Thirteenth Angel.

A wave of emotions flooded into him, none of them pleasant. First came the self-loathing that the Third Child was so well acquainted with. He had been so _stupid_ to antagonize his father after the Thirteenth Angel was destroyed, thus guaranteeing himself a trip to the brig. He should have realized that this could happen, but he'd been too damn drunk on triumph to even consider the possibility when he'd been hauled in front of his father. He'd been too busy rubbing the Commander's defeat in his face to even think about _why_ he'd fought the man so hard to begin with. Namely, keeping Misao safe from EVA, a task he'd failed spectacularly at because he'd been too full of himself.

Yet amidst all his shame and self-recrimination was an icy cold hate, frighteningly unlike the white hot rage he'd experienced while he was tearing apart the Thirteenth.

Shinji knew that if Misao died, he would kill his father. There were just no two ways about it; death would be the only fitting punishment for the Commander's actions, should they lead to Misao's demise. He didn't have any idea _how_ he would extract his revenge, only that he would, whatever the cost.

The Third Child's legs suddenly seemed to regain their bones. "Bring her back," he commanded Akagi, surprised by how steady his voice sounded. "Bring her back, or I'll never pilot EVA again."

"Shinji, do you really think this is the time to be making childish threats?" Akagi asked, eyes narrowing. "Don't forget how you ended up in the brig in the first place."

"I'm not making a threat, Dr. Akagi," Shinji said coolly. "I'm making a promise. I know my father doesn't give a damn about Misao's life, but he does give a damn about using Unit One. Well, I'm connecting those two things so the Commander has no choice but to care about what happens to her."

Ritsuko sighed, knowing that the Third Child wasn't about to budge on this issue. "We'll try and get her back, Shinji. I promise."

* * *

_The Second Day…_

Rei slowly opened her one uncovered eye, taking in the familiar setting of a room in the NERV Medical Ward.

"I'm still alive," she said softly.

"Yes, thank goodness."

Rei looked up and saw Shinji sitting by her bedside. The Third Child looked more weary than Rei had ever seen him. There were dark pouches under his eyes, and the eyes themselves contained a look of unrelenting horror. As if he had witnessed the most terrible thing in the world and it was reverberating endlessly inside of him.

Nevertheless, Shinji smiled slightly at her. "I heard you gave everyone a hell of a scare," he said. "I hope you never do something like that again."

"What happened to Misao?" Rei asked.

Shinji cringed slightly. "She was…absorbed by EVA."

"I see," Rei said. "I am…sorry."

"Ritsuko is working on trying to get her out," Shinji said. "She and Misao are friends, so I'm hoping she'll work at it until she succeeds."

"I hope she is successful," Rei said.

Shinji nodded. "Rei…please don't ever do something as suicidal as that stunt with the N2 mine again," he said. "I don't know what I'd do, if both of you…"

"If I die I can be replaced," Rei said.

"Not well enough for my liking," Shinji replied.

* * *

_The Third Day…_

"What the hell?" Shinji sputtered as he walked into the apartment.

The place had been completely trashed. Furniture had been upended, several of the dishes from the kitchen had been shattered and lay in pieces on the floor, the garbage can appeared to have been flung across the kitchen, scattering trash everywhere, and numerous small appliances had been broken.

It looked even worse than it had the first time he'd seen the place. Far worse, in Shinji's opinion. Back then, the apartment's state had been the result of neglect, but now it looked like someone had completely ransacked it.

_Burglars?_ He wondered, slowly venturing deeper into the apartment.

Shinji made it to the living room just in time to watch Asuka, who had been released from NERV Medical just that morning, fling a lamp to the floor and shatter it.

"Asuka! What the hell?" Shinji demanded.

She turned to him and sneered. "Oh, right, I forgot that they let the Invincible Shinji out the other day."

"Asuka, why did you trash Misao's apartment?" Shinji asked, taking a step toward her.

"Because she beat me!" Asuka exclaimed. "I couldn't do _anything_ against this Angel! First you outperform me with the Thirteenth, then Misao, the god damn backup pilot, does it with this one! Now all I need is Wondergirl to beat me, and my humiliation will be complete!"

It was only through supreme force of will that Shinji managed to resist the urge to strike her. Asuka must have noticed him shaking with rage, however, because she retreated a step, just before the Third Child exploded.

"You _bitch_!" Shinji screamed. "You god damn crazy bitch! Unit One ate Misao! It _ate_ her! You think that's some kind of accomplishment? You think that it's a good thing? You envy that? You're insane! Now get the hell out of my sight before I do something we'll both regret, and don't you _dare_ let me catch you doing this to Misao's stuff again!"

Asuka growled at him but complied, withdrawing to her room. Shinji soon heard the telltale sounds that indicated she was continuing her destructive rampage in there.

Well, that was fine, he thought. Asuka could destroy her own things to her heart's content for all he cared.

With a sigh, Shinji got to the gargantuan task of cleaning up the mess Asuka had made. It would take a lot of work, and he'd have to go out and buy replacements for a number of things Asuka had broken, but Shinji never even considered not doing it. Goodness knew Asuka wouldn't, and Misao wouldn't like it if her home was in ruins when she got back.

* * *

_The Fourth Day…_

"Where am I?" Misao wondered.

It seemed like she was inside the EVA, but at the same time it seemed that she wasn't. The two things were supposed to be mutually exclusive, but apparently they weren't, not in this place.

"How is this possible?"

_"This is your world. Your mind is here, but the Misao Katsuragi in Misao Katsuragi's mind is not."_

"I don't understand," Misao said.

_"You don't need to."_

"…it's quiet here."

_"Yes."_

* * *

_The Fifth Day…_

"An entire set of protocols just for this very situation," Sakura said in an awed tone as she looked over the information. "Dr. Akagi, how on earth did you manage to create all this so quickly?"

"I didn't," Ritsuko answered as she looked on over her assistant's shoulder. "Most of this data is from ten years ago."

"What data from ten years ago?" Maya asked. "Has this happened before?"

The Ops Director had been putting off dealing with the mountain of paperwork the massive destruction the Fourteenth Angel had caused to assist in the rescue operations. Neither Ritsuko nor Sakura was complaining.

"Yes, but it was before I started working here. It was during my mother's time," Ritsuko answered. "But I can still pick her brains."

"How did it come out ten years ago?" Sakura asked softly.

"They didn't succeed," Ritsuko asked with a shake of her head.

Neither her current or former assistant asked who had been absorbed into Unit One ten years ago, and for that Ritsuko was grateful.

There was certain terrible symmetry to it, Ritsuko mused. Misato might have been blind to Shinji's growing feelings for her, but their "deadbeat guardian" wasn't. Now Unit One had taken both of the two most important women in Shinji's life, the first during her mother's watch, and the second during her own.

"So, I've heard that Shinji's effectively declared himself on strike until we get Misao back," Sakura said. "Word is that he won't even do harmonics tests."

"Yes," Ritsuko said tiredly. "I don't know what we'll do if an Angel shows up any time soon. The repairs to Units Zero and Two will take a long time. They were both damaged beyond the Henflick limit in the last engagement."

"Do you really think Shinji would continue to refuse to pilot, even in the event of an Angel attack?" Maya asked. "Could he really let the whole world burn just for the sake of one girl, even one he loves?"

"I hope not, but I'd rather not have to find out," Ritsuko replied grimly.

_Especially given the boy's pedigree,_ she added silently.

* * *

_The Sixth Day…_

Shinji found himself walking around the Geofront a lot in his spare time, mostly whenever he wasn't sleeping, in school or working on cleaning up the apartment. He did this because it kept his time in Asuka's presence to a minimum, and because he certainly didn't feel like going to an arcade or doing any other cheerful means of killing time.

Eventually, the Third Child's aimless excursions brought him to a melon patch that was being tended to by an unshaven man with a ponytail and, at the moment, a watering can.

"Hey, Shinji," Kaji greeted the Third Child, "looks like you've found out my little hobby."

The spy was trying to sound cheerful, but even Shinji could see through the façade. Which was good, since he might have blown up at the man otherwise. His temper had been a hair trigger ever since he'd found out what had happened to Misao, and he didn't want to get Kaji angry at him.

He strongly suspected that Kaji would be a useful ally, should Shinji have to kill Gendo. Of course, the Third Child had utterly no desire to contemplate _that_ potential chain of events and thus didn't mention it.

"Hello, Kaji," was all the reply Shinji made.

Kaji, apparently satisfied that his melon patch had been properly watered, set down his watering can and pulled a packet of cigarettes from his breast pocket. The spy put one in his mouth and lit it with a little silver lighter.

"So, any news?" he asked, taking a drag.

"No," Shinji replied, knowing immediately what Kaji was referring to. "Everything's unchanged from when they started the rescue operation almost a week ago."

"I see," Kaji said. "Well, we'll just have to hope for the best. It's all we can do now."

It occurred to the Third Child that Kaji might have hated him for messing up as he had and putting Misao in danger. Shinji suddenly felt an absurd rush of gratitude toward Kaji for not being angry with him, even though he probably deserved it.

"You know, Shinji," Kaji said, ending a brief lull in the conversation, "that was a hell of a thing you did for Katsuragi, during the battle with the Thirteenth Angel."

"Yeah, it was," Shinji agreed, his voice bitter. "Pity that I screwed up so badly right after that."

Kaji arched an eyebrow. "I wasn't aware that you were the one who ordered the Third Child be confined to a holding cell until further notice," he commented. "I thought that was the Commander."

"Maybe if I'd been smart enough to not behave like an arrogant idiot to him afterwards, he wouldn't have sent Misao to fight the Fourteenth," Shinji said.

Kaji sighed. "Kid, for what it's worth, I don't think things would have gone much differently if you'd dropped to your knees and begged your father's forgiveness."

Unfortunately, to the inconsolable Third Child, Kaji's reassurances weren't worth much of anything at all.

"Can I ask you something, Shinji?"

"Sure," Shinji replied.

"During the battle against the Thirteenth, when you threatened to self destruct Unit One, were you really prepared to do it, if you'd had to?" Kaji asked.

Shinji frowned slightly. "Yeah, I was," he said. "Looking back, I don't see how that would have helped anything, if I'd actually pulled the switch, but I wasn't exactly thinking straight at the time."

"I think that's why your father gave in," Kaji commented. "You really care about her, don't you?"

"Yeah," Shinji said softly.

"You plan on telling her?" Kaji asked.

Shinji shook his head. "No."

"Mind if I ask why not?"

"Because I'm just some messed up little idiot. One who, after finally managing to really get something _right_ for once, immediately fails harder than ever right afterwards," Shinji replied, looking down at his feet. "Misao deserves better than me."

"Well…that's a rather arrogant attitude to have," Kaji said.

"Wha-What?!" Shinji sputtered.

He had expected some kind of sympathy from Kaji, another man who cared for Misao but couldn't have her. This caught him entirely by surprise and confused him beyond measure. Shinji couldn't even begin to figure out how Kaji had come to such a conclusion.

"Well, shouldn't whether or not you're good enough for Misao be _her_ decision?" Kaji asked. "It seems rather…presumptuous of you to be making that call for her, without letting her know how you feel."

Shinji blinked. He had never thought of it that way before. However, the idea of confessing his feelings to Misao filled him a level of anxiety that was nearly equal to what he'd felt when he'd been told that an accident had occurred during the Unit Three activation test. If he told her...

"You know, even if she doesn't return your feelings, which I suspect is far more unlikely than you imagine, that doesn't mean you won't be friends anymore," Kaji said, seemingly reading the Third Child's mind.

"Maybe," Shinji conceded, "but what I decide to do won't matter if she doesn't come back."

Kaji sighed, finding he had no counterargument to that. "No, it won't."

* * *

_The Twenty-Ninth Day…_

_"Do you like it here?"_

"Yes, it's quiet here. Peaceful."

The soothing darkness around her abruptly dissolved, and Misao was suddenly back in her apartment. It was prior to Shinji's arrival, judging by the fact that garbage and liquor bottles were scattered everywhere. Misao wrinkled her nose in distaste, wondering how she had ever lived in such a sty.

"YEEEEEHAAW!"

Misao spun around to see herself before Unit One had changed her back into a teenager. The older version of herself was wearing very short denim shorts and a tank top, clearly without any underwear beneath them, and she had obviously just finished off her morning beer.

"I don't know about you," Misato said, crumpling her empty can against her forehead, "but I'm not a huge fan of peace and quiet."

"It's different for you," Misao protested, looking down at the dirty floor.

Misato laughed tipsily, cracking open another can of beer. "Kid, in case you haven't noticed, I _am_ you!"

"No, you're not! Not anymore! You can't understand me!" Misao shouted.

Her eyes snapped opened, and suddenly her apartment was gone. For a moment, she thought that she was back inside the entry plug, but soon realized that wasn't the case. She was inside the escape pod her father had placed her in during the Second Impact. She had never realized how similar the two were.

"Am I you?"

Misao looked up and saw a near mirror image of herself, except the other her was wearing a blood stained parka.

"No, you're not me, either," Misao told young Misato petulantly.

The interior of the escape pod vanished, immediately replaced by one of the Evangelion cages inside NERV headquarters.

"Why do you feel as though you need the quiet and the darkness of this place, Misao?" Rei asked they watched Unit One being deployed to fight the Fifth Angel.

"It's because I don't know who I am in any longer," Misao confessed. "In my heart, I don't know."

Misao suddenly found herself alongside the Second and Third Children on the sidewalk outside their apartment building.

"What do you mean?" Shinji asked as they walked to school.

"How can you not know who you are?" Asuka demanded. "What are you? Stupid?"

"No, it's not that," Misao said. "It's just that I feel like I'm too different people at once. It's like I'm in limbo between the world of adults and the world of children. I don't really belong in either anymore!"

Misao was suddenly in a cluttered and cramped room she recognized as her dorm in her junior year of college. A college aged Misato and a college aged Ryoji Kaji lay under the covers of the room's small bed together. Misato's head lay on Kaji's chest, and the smell that permeated the room made it obvious that nothing platonic had happened there recently.

"Come on, Katsuragi, quit fooling yourself," Kaji said, grinning at Misao. "You did that enough when you were with me. You know that's not what's really bothering you."

"Yeah," college Misato agreed, taking a puff off a cigarette, "no little identity crisis could ever get us down. Not by itself, anyway."

"You're right," Misao confessed. "What's really been bothering me…"

The dorm room melted away and was replaced with a hallway in NERV headquarters. An adult version of her was talking on the phone with Shinji standing a few feet behind her. Neither noticed Misao.

"Like I said, I'll take care of Shinji-kun," Misato spoke into the phone. "And don't worry, it's not like I'm going to 'put the moves' on the kid."

"Of course not!" Ritsuko's voice blasted out of the phone, causing Misato to flinch and move it away from her ear. "What the hell are you thinking?! You're always like that! Honestly!"

Misao abruptly found herself on the observation platform, the one where you could see all of Tokoyo-3. Judging by the way she and Shinji had their arms around one another, and how she could feel his hot breath on her face, this wasn't the time she'd brought him here to show him the city he'd saved by fighting the Third Angel.

She pulled away from Shinji mere seconds before their lips touched. He gave her a confused look, and she turned away, unable to meet his eyes.

"Let's go home," she said.

"Misao, don't you care about me?" Shinji asked. "I stood up to my father and destroyed the Thirteenth Angel for you!"

"I do! I do care about you!" Misao exclaimed, tears suddenly filling her eyes. "I care about you so much, and I want you so bad! But I can't have you!"

Adult Misato appeared, wearing her NERV uniform. "I am part of the Misao Katsuragi in Misao Katsuragi's mind," she said.

Teen Misato appeared next in her bloodied parka. "As am I. In most cases, the self is composed of two selves. The self which is observed and the self which observes itself. However, in your case, the Misao Katsuragi in Misao Katsuragi's mind is two selves, merged into one divided whole."

Misao nodded, barely hearing her counterparts, and looked up at Shinji. He looked devastated at her rejection, and it broke her heart to see him like that. "I'm sorry, Shinji-kun!" she cried. "I really do care about you! In fact, I…I love you!"

The world around her shattered, and suddenly she was back in that soothing darkness. Misao tried to let out a sigh of relief, but found she had no mouth to do it with it. In fact, she had no body at all.

_Well, that's all right_, she decided.

* * *

_The Thirtieth Day…_

Shinji Ikari was doing something he hadn't done in a long time. He was laying on his futon, listening to music on his SDAT and looking up at the ceiling.

In a way he was disgusted at himself for doing this, recognizing that it was just a form of running away, something Misato had told him not to do on the day he'd met her. On the other hand, however, it was strangely comforting, if only because of how familiar this activity was to him. Besides, there wasn't anything he could do at the moment. The task of saving Misao was in Ritsuko's hands now.

They were finally going to make an attempt at rescuing Misao from the EVA tomorrow. Ritsuko had already called Shinji out of school so he could be there, at his insistence.

He wanted Ritsuko to succeed in freeing Misao more than he'd ever wanted anything else before. He wanted it so badly that he was afraid to allow himself to hope for it, lest his hopes be crushed.

Yet in a way, he feared it. He'd given a lot of thought to what Kaji had said to him, and he had—somewhat reluctantly—come to the conclusion that he did have to tell her how he felt about her, lest he regret his silence for the rest of his life.

Regardless, the idea that Misao would want him still seemed ludicrous to him. She was so strong and intelligent and beautiful that she could have anyone she wanted. He was just a sick and cowardly individual, who had no right to feel the desire for her that burned through him. He _had_ tried to protect her, put more effort into his struggles to protect her than he ever had into anything else in his life, but…

_I failed,_ he thought, the music from his SDAT utterly failing to keep his churning thoughts at bay. _I set out to protect Misao from EVA, and I failed._

His tape reached the end and began to rewind. Shinji barely noticed. _I was using her, at the start, anyway. I just wanted a reason to pilot EVA, a purpose, but I would have kept doing it even without one. I didn't have the guts to tell my father where he could stick it and walk away from EVA, and I couldn't abandon everyone to the Angels. I needed a way to be able to fool myself, some justification for when I told myself "I'm doing this because I choose to. I'm doing this for my own reasons, for me."_

Shinji turned onto his side. _I used her. For a while, I was no better than my father. But now…now I think I love her. I love her, and I failed her. Damn it, why didn't I lie to my father and tell him I was sorry for disobeying him and threatening to destroy Unit One? I'm such a failure._

The tape finished rewinding and started over. Again, Shinji barely noticed. _I love her, and now she may be as good as—_

Shinji abruptly ripped his headphones off and flung the SDAT across the room, violently stopping himself from completing the thought. It struck the far wall and shattered into pieces, giving Shinji a burst of satisfaction that surprised him somewhat.

"No wonder why Asuka destroyed the apartment," he mumbled to himself.

Not that he wasn't still rather annoyed at her for doing it. It had taken him the better part of the month to get it back to normal.

He glanced at his broken SDAT, laying on the floor. "Stupid thing," he muttered. "Not good for anything. All you ever did was help me run away."

* * *

_The Thirty-First Day…_

While NERV had been working on getting Misao out, they had also apparently managed to find the time to replace Unit One's helmet. This came as a relief to Shinji; the EVA's single green eye peering out, unblinking, from the bandages had seriously unnerved him, even though it lacked the soul piercing quality it had had on the night of the First Battle of Tokyo-3, so long ago.

The entry plug had been removed nine tenths of the way from Unit One's back, and several metallic rings had been erected around it for reasons Shinji couldn't have guessed at. Not that he really cared about the all the science behind this. All that mattered to him was whether or not NERV managed to free Misao from Unit One.

"Ego border pulse connection is complete," Sakura said, looking at a computer readout that Shinji couldn't make heads nor tails of.

"Roger," Ritsuko replied. "Start the salvage operation."

"Initiating program, transmitting first signal," Makoto said.

"Signal received, no rejection," Aoba replied.

Shinji tried not to grimace at the cool, flat voices of the technicians. It was probably just his imagination, but to him it sounded like they were just waiting for everything to go straight to hell.

"Proceed to send the second and third signals," Sakura said.

"Subject is normal."

"Destrudo cannot be confirmed."

Shinji was aware of an increasingly loud humming sound, but he had no idea where exactly it was coming from. He suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see Maya standing behind him. He forced a small smile and nodded politely before he turned back to look at EVA again.

"Affirmative, shift the subject to phase two!" Ritsuko commanded.

"Please, come back to me," Shinji whispered.

* * *

Misao was sitting on a beach of pristine white sand, her knees drawn up to her chest as she gazed out at the waves, watching the green water of the ocean advance and recede, advance and recede.

"Hello."

Misao turned to see a woman standing behind her. She was wearing a dress with a lab coat over it. Not exactly beach clothing, but then again, neither was Misao's plug suit. The woman was about Misao's age, if you went by the calendar rather than the mirror in regards to the Fourth Child, and she bore a striking resemblance to Rei. However, the brown hair and green eyes immediately convinced Misao that she wasn't the First Child.

"I…don't know you," Misao noted with a slight frown, confused. Everything else she'd seen so far had come from her own mind.

"No, I guess you don't," the woman said with a small smile, sitting down next to Misao.

Aware that the woman wasn't going to tell her who she was, Misao simply shrugged and turned to look back at the ocean.

"I suppose I should thank you," the Rei look-alike said. "I haven't been this self-aware in a very long time. It's nice."

"Uh, you're welcome, I guess," Misao responded.

The woman's smile widened slightly, and she leaned back a bit, propping herself up with her arms. "You know, you have a choice to make, Misao Katsuragi," she said. "I made mine before I ever came to this place, but you obviously haven't."

"What choice is that?" Misao asked.

"Why, to stay in this place for the rest of eternity, or to return to the world outside," the woman answered. "You can go back just by willing it, or you can release your soul and become one with me. If you choose the latter, you will sleep most of the time, as I do."

"I don't want to go back," Misao said, hugging her knees. "If I go back, all I'll end up doing is hurting Shinji."

The woman arched an eyebrow. "I thought you would bring Shinji happiness. It's the reason I transformed you."

"You did that?" Misao gasped.

The woman nodded. "Yes. I knew Shinji cared for you, and I wanted to make it so you could be with him."

"Well, you failed," Misao responded in irritation. "My body's younger, but my mind isn't. Not entirely. Part of me is still a full grown woman, and it won't let me get close to that boy, no matter how much I may want to."

"Misao," the woman said. "I want to show you something."

The world shattered and then reformed around them, and suddenly they were standing in the EVA cage. Misao realized at once that this was the day the Third Angel had attacked, the day she'd first met Shinji and brought him to NERV.

"Is this what my father's been working on?" Shinji asked.

"Correct," Commander Ikari said, standing a room above the EVA and looking down at Shinji. "It's been a while."

Shinji couldn't meet the man's eyes. "Father," he said softly.

"You sensed his terror of Gendo even then, didn't you?" the Rei look-alike spoke. "Shinji feared nothing so much as his own father. Not even the Angels."

The world broke and was remade again. This time, Misao realized that she had no physical body, but she was still present, and she could somehow sense that the mystery woman was as well.

They were inside the entry plug of Unit One, and Shinji was at the controls. They could see Unit Three, its eyes burning with demonic red light, in the displays.

"Shinji!" Gendo growled. "I order you to kill this Angel!"

"_**Fuck you!**_" Shinji screamed, voice horse. "_**Fuck you and your orders, you miserable bastard! I am going to save her or I am going to die trying!**_"

Misao abruptly found herself sitting on the beach again, with the woman still next to her.

"Do you see?" the woman asked. "Shinji confronted and overcame his worst fear, and he unquestionably did so for you. It might have been a boy that climbed into Unit One to face the Thirteenth Angel, but it was a man who climbed out that day."

Misao nodded, unable to dispute the point. "But I don't deserve Shinji," she protested instead. "He's…he's a hero, and he's compassionate and kind and dependable. I'm just a damn whore. I've made myself so filthy over the years to spite my father. I was just a dirty old whore. Then you changed me, but the only difference is that now I'm a dirty young whore. Shinji deserves better than me."

As if to punctuate Misao's point, they suddenly found themselves in her old dorm room at college. Scenes of all the various degrading and filthy things she'd done in this room—most of them done just to spite her father and most of them done with Kaji—flashed by, like a god awful porno on fast forward. It took a depressingly long time for everything to be shown, despite how quickly it all passed by.

Misao turned away, feeling disgust and shame stab into her, and they were back on the beach. "See?" she asked.

The woman shook her head. "You are no more that person now than Shinji is the timid child you brought to NERV during the First Battle of Tokyo-3," she said. "And I'll have you know that the Misao Katsuragi in Shinji Ikari's mind isn't a dirty whore. She never was. The Misao Katsuragi in Shinji's mind is as pure and clean as fresh snow."

"Then Shinji's wrong," Misao said curtly.

"All it would take to wash away the filth is the love of another," the woman said.

Misao refused to make a reply.

The woman sighed. "You are afraid of happiness," she said. "It's understandable. Those who have never had it are hesitant to reach out and grab it. They believe that they will only have their hand slapped away, so they don't try."

Misao didn't reply. When it became obvious that she wasn't planning to, the woman continued. "You can remain here forever, if you so choose. But you should be aware that if you do, Shinji will probably become likewise afraid of happiness. He may well be miserable for the rest of his life."

* * *

"It's no good! Her ego borderline is frozen into a fixed loop!" Sakura shouted as her readout went crazy.

"Try and irradiate the wave patterns from all directions!" Ritsuko ordered. She rushed over to Sakura and looked over her shoulder at the technician's screen. "My god! All of the radiated signals are being trapped in Klein space!"

"Wh-what's that mean?" Shinji asked.

"It means…we failed," Ritsuko admitted, and Shinji felt his stomach plunge into his shoes.

"Abort intervention!" Ritsuko commanded. "Reverse the tangent graph! Set the addition value at zero!"

"Roger!" Sakura replied.

"Destrudo reaction in the Q-area!" Aoba reported. "Pattern is sepia!"

"I've got a change in the core pulse, too! Class three, confirmed!" Makoto added.

"Maintaining current condition has priority! Stop that backflow!" Ritsuko shouted.

"Right!" Sakura said, typing furiously. "Backflow, plus point five, point eight! This is all wrong! I can't stop it!"

Shinji wavered on his feet and probably would have fallen to the ground if not for Maya steadying him.

"What's going on!?" Ritsuko exclaimed, looking up at Unit One. "Don't you want to come back, Misato?"

"The EVA! It's rejecting the signal!" Sakura shouted as red alert warnings appeared everywhere.

"Misato's ego pervasion is disintegrating in the LCL!" Aoba said.

"Pressure in the plug is increasing!" Makoto added.

"Abort all operations! Power down!" Ritsuko yelled.

"It's not working!" Sakura said. "The plug is being ejected!"

The hatch opened and LCL began to gush out onto the walkway. Shinji's eyes widened. "No…" he breathed. "_No!_"

Ritsuko, Maya, and the bridge techs could only watch, frozen in horror, while Shinji sprinted down to the walkway where the LCL that had once been Misao was pouring. By the time Shinji had reached his destination, the great flow of LCL had ebbed to a mere trickle and Misao's blue and white plug suit had been washed onto the walkway.

Shinji fell to his knees before the garment, crying. He picked it up and hugged it to his chest as he sobbed.

"Damn you, you monster!" Shinji yelled, turning to glare at Unit One. "I let you have her one time! One single damn time! And you took her away from me! Give her back, damn you! I need her! Give her back!"

He tried to keep yelling at the EVA, but he broke down and his shouts dissolved into sobs as he cried over the empty plug suit.

There was a splashing sound off to his left, and he turned to see what had caused it. His jaw dropped when he saw an unconscious Misao laying face down on the floor in a puddle of LCL, completely naked.

For once, the sight of an excessive amount of Misao's skin invoked neither arousal nor embarrassment in him. All Shinji felt was relief, an enormous sense of sweeping relief that his world had not been shattered as he'd feared.

"Misao! Oh, thank god!" Shinji exclaimed as he quickly made his way over to her, still on his knees, and gently cradled her head in his hands.

Moments later a medical team arrived with a gurney, and Shinji allowed them to take Misao away. The Third Child got to his feet, wiping his eyes. It was of little use; he was still crying, but now they were tears of joy.

He looked up at EVA's face. "Thank you," he said softly. "Maybe you're not as bad as I thought you were."

* * *

_The Thirty-Third Day…_

The moment he'd gotten word of the successful retrieval of Misao from the EVA, Commander Ikari had ordered that she be allowed no visitors while the doctors in the NERV medical ward looked her over. This had annoyed Shinji, to put it mildly, not least of all because he knew why his father had done it. Gendo was just reminding Shinji of the fact that he had power over Misao, and could easily place her back in harm's way if he so chose.

Fortunately, Misao proved to be in perfect health, and the medical ward had released her only about a day and a half after they'd admitted her. When Shinji had received a call from Ritsuko telling him to come to NERV and bring some clothing for her with him, he'd gladly complied.

Now he was stuck in the ward's waiting room, pacing about in jittery anticipation. He had spoken to Ritsuko and given her the clothing...

He checked the clock on the wall and was shocked to see that only ten minutes had elapsed since his arrival. Shinji sighed and continued his pacing.

"Shinji-kun!"

He turned to see Misao rushing toward him, arms outstretched. She slammed into him hard enough to send him staggering back a couple of steps, but Shinji didn't care a bit, returning the bear hug she gave him and nearly bursting into tears again.

"Well, isn't this touching?" Ritsuko teased good naturedly, coming up behind them.

The two separated and Shinji turned to the scientist, grinning. "Is Misao done here?" he asked. "Is she free to go?"

Ritsuko nodded. "Yes, I've just signed the release papers. You two can go home. I'll have a car sent to take you two back to your apartment."

"Thanks, Rits," Misao said brightly, then turned to Shinji. "Let's blow this popsicle stand, Shinji-kun."

Shinji nodded. The two said good-bye to Ritsuko and started making their way to the parking deck where the car would be.

"Shinji-kun," Misao said once they were alone in the hallways together. "I want to thank you for what you did to save me from the Thirteenth Angel. It was the bravest thing anyone's ever done for me."

Shinji beamed. "I could never let you be killed, let alone do it myself."

Misao just shook her head at his modesty. "So, where's Asuka?" she asked.

His expression darkened somewhat as he felt a stab of annoyance mixed with embarrassment. When he'd told the Second Child that Misao was being released, Asuka had proclaimed that she was sleeping over at Hikari's, saying she didn't want to watch Shinji and Misao "make kissy faces at each other all night."

"She's staying at the class rep's place tonight," Shinji replied.

"Oh, I see," Misao replied, feeling both insulted and pleased at once.

The trip back to the apartment was a surprisingly silent one, as both pilots had similar thoughts in their minds.

Misao couldn't remember most of what had happened inside of the EVA, but some of the critical revelations she'd made had managed to stick with her. Most notably the fact that Shinji was mature enough for her to be with without guilt, and that she'd admitted to herself that she loved him.

"I'm home," Misao said as she and Shinji walked into the apartment.

Shinji laughed. "Welcome home," he said. "It's been rough here without you, Misao."

"Who was watching you two all this time?" Misao asked.

"No one," Shinji answered. "Asuka and I had the place all to ourselves."

Misao blinked in surprise. She knew that it made no difference legally whether she was around or not, since Ritsuko was the guardian of all of them. Still, she would've expected someone to come over and make sure that they (and by "they" Misao meant Asuka) didn't tear the place apart or something.

"Ugh, Ritsuko's such a deadbeat," she said. "I'll have to have a talk with her later...hey, is that a new lamp?"

"Um, yeah. I accidentally knocked the old one over while I was cleaning up," Shinji lied. "So, you wanna go out someplace to celebrate? We could hit up that sushi place, or go and get a steak dinner if you'd like."

"I think I'd prefer a quiet dinner here, if that's okay with you," Misao said.

"Sure, no trouble at all," he said. "I'll throw something together in no time. We are so bad about keeping our little 'tradition,' though."

Misao smiled. "I guess we are."

Several minutes later, Shinji was placing a simple dinner on the table. He and Misao began to eat, the uncomfortable silence that had hung in the air during most of their trip home returning. It wasn't until they'd finished eating and washed the dishes that they finally broke the silence.

"Misao."

"Shinji-kun."

They spoke at the exact same time.

"Go ahead," Shinji said, his right hand clenching and unclenching in that nervous tic of his.

"No, you first," Misao said.

He nodded and took a deep breath. "Misao, you've come to mean a lot to me over the months we've been together. I'm not sure I could have done any of this without you. Honestly, I might be dead right now if it wasn't for you, you've made that much of a difference to me. And, well…I'll understand if you don't feel the same way, but," he swallowed as the words tried to get caught in his throat again, "I love you."

Misao's beautiful brown eyes widened hugely, and Shinji felt his stomach turn to lead as his pessimistic nature caused him to jump to the worst possible conclusion. _She's trying to figure out how to let me down easily, I just know—_

With a squeal of joy, Misao leapt onto him, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. Shinji was caught totally by surprise and went sprawling backwards, eventually colliding rather painfully with the kitchen counter.

He stopped feeling the pain entirely when Misao pressed her lips to his, kissing him passionately. Shinji's eyes widened and he just stood there, stunned, while she kissed him. Had he been able to form a coherent thought, he would have feared that he was dreaming.

When she at last broke the kissed, Shinji saw that Misao was crying, even as she smiled radiantly at him.

"I love you, too, Shinji, I love you so much," Misao said softly.

Shinji gasped slightly. All of a sudden, he—the guy who had lost his mother at the tender age of four and been abandoned by his father shortly after that, the guy who had been blackmailed into fighting a life or death struggle in a war machine he had no idea how to operate by his father, the guy who had spent the last month in a caldron of self loathing and rage—felt like he was by _far_ the luckiest man to ever set foot upon the Earth, bar none.

Shinji blinked and realized that a few tears of joy had escaped him as well.

Their lips suddenly met again, and this time Shinji kissed Misao back for all he was worth. He was a little clumsy at it, but Misao was more than willing to be patient as he learned.

Somehow, the two of them in their passionate exchange went tumbling to the linoleum of the kitchen floor. They didn't even register any pain from the fall and went right on kissing as if nothing had happened.

Neither of them ever would be able to say how they managed to make it to Misao's bedroom that night, but then again, they never really cared that much about that little detail.

* * *

Kaji leaned back and rubbed his eyes before he tried to get back to work. Unfortunately, the moment he tried to focus on his computer's screen, the text on it began to swim about. He really did need to get some sleep, he supposed.

The spy sighed, leaning back in his chair. SEELE was not pleased at all about the recent turn of events. Unit One gaining an S2 organ might have fit neatly into Ikari's scenario, but it didn't fit into theirs, that was for damn sure. Even Ikari's decision to put the EVA into cryo-stasis now that Misao had escaped it hadn't mollified them very much.

Kaji wasn't an idiot. He knew he was living on borrowed time. With NERV and SEELE at odds like this, one of his masters would order him to do something that would piss off another one, and he would be taken out in retaliation.

He picked up a small capsule from his desk and rolled it between his fingers. He wished there was someone he could pass the torch to before that happened. Unfortunately, the only person he really trusted was with the task was Misao, and he was loathe to hand this to her, just when she seemed to be getting a fresh start. Besides, as a pilot, she was already deep enough in all this, anyway.

He sighed and put the capsule down. Depriving himself sleep wouldn't help anything, he decided, and headed for bed.

* * *

"Mm, the joys of being a horny teenager again," Misao sighed contentedly as she tossed a used rubber into a nearby waste bin, where it joined three of its brothers.

Smiling, Shinji gently wrapped his arms around Misao. She leaned her head on his chest. "Misao-chan, that was incredible," he said softly.

She beamed. "You weren't so bad yourself," she replied. "Stick with me, Shinji-kun, and I'll make a sex god out of you in no time."

"I don't know about that," Shinji said doubtfully. Misao frowned and was about to tell him that he was being too modest when he continued. "I can be a slow learner sometimes. I think I'll need _lots_ of practice."

Misao laughed and Shinji tightened his embrace of her slightly, enjoying the sound.

Both of them had so much they wanted to tell the other. Misao wanted to let Shinji know that she'd had feelings for him ever since she'd come to visit him in the medical ward after the Fifth Angel had nearly killed him. Shinji wanted to confess to her how he'd used her as a source of strength and strove to keep her from piloting EVA, and how he'd fallen in love with her in the process.

Neither of them had any fears of telling the other these things, but after the trials they had been through recently, both just wanted to bask in the afterglow. The more serious pillow talk could wait for another night.

"You know, it's kind of funny," he commented.

She looked up at him. "What?"

"Well, Asuka would always get so mad at me if she thought I was thinking perverted things," he said. "I can't count all the times she's called me a hentai. And even I felt ashamed whenever I got excited. I was just raised that way, I guess. But now that I've actually had sex…well, what we did was beautiful. I just don't get why everyone seems to think it's some kind of terrible, dirty thing."

_The Misao Katsuragi in Shinji's mind is as pure and clean as fresh snow/ All it would take to wash away the filth is the love of another_, echoed through her mind.

She suddenly hugged him as tightly as she could, surprising him. He really did view her as pure, despite having witnessed her antics before she was transformed. Knowing that made her feel truly clean for the first time in years. In fact, she didn't just feel clean, she felt renewed.

"You'll never get why people think sex is filthy," she vowed. "Not while I have anything to say about it."

* * *

Author's Notes: And, at long last, our heroes get together. Now it ought to be smooth sailing for our new couple…except for the last three Angels, and the JSSDF attack, and the MP EVA Series…

Well, at least they can lean on each other this time around.

Now, I realize that it may have seemed a little abrupt the way Shinji and Misao so quickly jumped into bed together. However, with the two of them living together for months and secretly having feelings for each other, the sexual tension must have reached a fever pitch. Combined with how conscious they are of their own mortality (or, at least, Misao's mortality) in the wake of recent events, I don't think it's unrealistic.

Anyway, I hope I didn't pour too much angst into this chapter, but there was no way Shinji wouldn't be an absolute mess in this situation, blaming himself and lashing out at others.

Hopefully the head trip was all right. I tried to keep things as, well, crazy as I could without making it a total mystery what was supposed to be happening, but it's not as easy to do both in this medium, I think.

MadAngryBeaver, yeah, I actually debated whether or not to have Gendo snort. It's not exactly IC for him, but he was _really_ shaken by the near destruction of Unit One, plus I wanted to really show his contempt for the idea that Shinji could love Misao as much as he loves Yui.

NefCanuck, well, it's not like canon Gendo never did something crazy just to make things worse for Shinji in hopes of more easily controlling him. Waiting until the last possible second to summons Shinji to Tokyo-3, for example.

Anyway, thanks to all my readers and reviewers. Now for some fun.

* * *

Omakes

Name that movie

Shinji smiled as he felt Misao lay her head on his chest. He put an arm around her and pulled her closer. "You know, Misao-chan, I'm really glad we got together," he said softly.

"Me too," Misao agreed with a smile.

"But we should probably try and keep it quiet," Shinji continued, "just to make sure NERV doesn't try and butt into our lives, and to try and keep rumors from breaking out about us at school."

"Right," Misao agreed. "We should be discreet."

"Discreet, yeah," Shinji said. "Exactly."

"Don't worry, Shinji-kun, I can do that," Misao said.

* * *

_The next day…_

"SHINJI IKARI AND I ARE IN LOVE AND WE HAD SEX!"

Everyone in the school yard fell dead silent and just stared at Misao for several seconds. The purple haired girl swallowed and turned to Asuka. "Did I say that very loudly?"

Asuka sweat dropped. "Loudly? You screamed it at the top of your lungs, dummkopf!"

Already over at the pilot's table, Shinji just sighed. By the looks of it, at least half the guys in the school were either glaring at him with extreme envy or trying to subtly make their way over to him, probably hoping he'd be willing to give them a play-by-play. Obviously, he was in for a very long day.

"Eh, totally worth it," he commented to no one in particular.

* * *

Rubbing it in

"Hello, Kaji-san."

The spy looked up from watering his melon patch to see the Third Child approaching him. Normally, Kaji didn't mind Shinji at all, but the look on the Third Child's face made the spy wish that the kid would just turn around and leave. Shinji was wearing the unmistakable shit eating grin of a teenage boy who had just gotten lucky and was looking to brag about it.

"Hello, Shinji," Kaji replied.

"You used to date Misato back in college, right?" Shinji asked, pretty much confirming Kaji's suspicions.

_I don't see why he's coming to me for this,_ Kaji thought sourly. _I know he has male friends his own age who'd be happy to listen to him tell them all about how wonderfully squishy certain parts of the female anatomy are. Just because I encouraged the kid to pursue her doesn't mean I want all the intimate details!_

"Yes, I did," Kaji said.

"Tell me," Shinji said, a slightly crazed gleam in his eyes, "was she _always_ so wild in bed?"

Kaji's eye twitched, then he cuffed Shinji, sending the Third Child staggering backwards. The spy then proceeded to stalk off in a huff.

Shinji, who normally would have been left quite depressed by this turn of events, was feeling way too good to get depressed and just giggled, further annoying Kaji.

_Damn kid,_ the spy thought. _There was no need for that, and_ _what's he thinking saying such things about Misato to people? I'd never say such things._


	16. Chapter 16

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

Chapter Sixteen: **Respite/The Spy Who Could Have Loved Me**

The first thing Shinji became aware of as he began to rouse the next morning was the comfortable warmth. This was unusual, and he frowned slightly in confusion. The apartment building's air conditioning system had always been a bit too good at its job in Shinji's opinion, and he tended to wake up feeling slightly chilly.

Then he opened his eyes and was greeted with the sight of Misao sleeping peacefully next to him. _So it wasn't a dream,_ Shinji thought, feeling the joy washing over him anew.

Shinji honestly wasn't sure what had come over him last night and allowed him to get intimate with Misao without the paralyzing fear and nervousness that he frankly would have expected of himself. Whatever it had been, though, he was glad of it. Last night had easily been the best of his life.

Then again, discovering that Misao loved him would have ensured that last night would have been the happiest of life even if nothing more passionate than a chaste kiss had occurred.

_The rest of it sure didn't hurt the evening, though_, Shinji thought as a large, contented smile spread across his face, looking down at Misao. She looked so beautiful and peaceful as she slept that, had Shinji the ability to set his own schedule, he would have just watched her sleep and waited for her to wake up. Unfortunately, he didn't have that ability, and it was a school day. So he reluctantly got up, heading off to take a shower and then make breakfast.

* * *

Asuka yawned hugely as she rode the elevator up the apartment building, heading for home. She silently chastised herself for forgetting to bring her school things with her to Hikari's place, which had necessitated she wake up at the crack of dawn and head for home.

The elevator pinged as it arrived at the proper floor and the doors slid open. Asuka made the short walk to the Katsuragi apartment and unlocked the door with her key, stepping inside.

Shinji was in the kitchen, wearing that green apron of his and making breakfast. He smiled at her. "Guten Morgen, Asuka," he greeted cheerfully. "Would you like some breakfast?"

"Uh, sure, thanks," Asuka said, a bit taken aback by his good mood.

She had been expecting him to be in better spirits with the return of Misao, of course, but not to this degree. For the past month or so, she could easily sense his simmering anger toward her whenever they were in the same room. When he'd told her to get out of his sight lest he do something they both later wished he hadn't, Asuka had been sure he wasn't exaggerating how close he was to hitting her.

But this morning he was all smiles, acting as friendly to her as he ever had, as though none of it had ever happened.

"So, did you have a good time at Hikari's place last night?" Shinji asked as he removed a couple more eggs from the fridge.

"Yeah," Asuka replied warily.

"That's good," he said. "Asuka, I'd like to apologize for the way I blew up at you. I was in a really bad place, and I guess I forgot you had your own frustrations to deal with. I'm sorry."

Asuka blinked. The Third Child, once annoyingly apologetic, hadn't said that once since the battle against the Thirteenth, at least not so far as she knew.

"Apology accepted," she said. "Just don't do it again."

He smiled at her and nodded in response, and silence fell in the kitchen, save for the sounds of eggs and sausages frying in Shinji's skillet. A few minutes later he was finished, and began setting the table.

"Good morning!" Misao exclaimed from the hallway, very effectively breaking the silence.

A moment later the purple haired teen walked out, wearing nothing but a man's white button up shirt and (Asuka fervently hoped) panties.

"Misao," Asuka said slowly, "isn't that Shinji's shirt?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes, I guess it is," Misao said absently before wrapping her arms around Shinji, hugging him from behind. "You cooked such a nice breakfast for me? You really are a sweetie, Shin-chan."

Shinji grinned and blushed very slightly. "It was nothing, Misao-chan. I was happy to do it," he replied calmly, causing the Second Child to narrow her eyes.

Asuka Langley Soryu was not stupid, just the opposite in fact. So it didn't take her long to put the pieces together. A stupidly cheerful (and extremely forgiving) Shinji, Misao wearing his clothes, Shinji's relatively unembarrassed response to her usual flirting, and him calling Misao "-chan" all added up to one inescapable conclusion.

"Mein Gott," Asuka groaned loudly, "you two had sex!"

Misao smiled, tightening her embrace on Shinji and laying her chin on his shoulder as she looked at Asuka. "Yes, quite a lot of it in fact," she said. "Shinji is very energetic."

Shinji's blush deepened, but he grinned proudly.

"You'd better not do anything ecchi in front of me," Asuka warned, "and you two perverts had better not keep me awake at night!"

Misao finally disengaged herself from Shinji and wagged a finger at her. "No promises, Asuka," she giggled.

Asuka sighed theatrically and began shoveling scrambled eggs into her mouth. Part of her was actually happy for them. It had, after all, been painfully obvious to her that they liked each other for a long time now. More than once Asuka had wanted to snap at the two to just kiss and stop torturing themselves.

But another part of her…

_It's not fair! They get to kill the Angels _and_ be happy. Why can't _I_ ever get so lucky?_ She wondered bitterly.

* * *

"Morning, Ikari."

"Hey, Shinji, ready to head out?"

Shinji grinned at Toji and Kensuke, who had arrived to pick him up on their way to school. "Not yet," he said cheerfully. "I still need to wait for Misao-chan."

They blinked, and were about to say something when Misao appeared next to Shinji in an almost perfect recreation of the first day she'd gone to school with him. "Hey, guys," she greeted cheerfully.

"Misao!"

"You're back!"

"That's right," Misao said cheerfully. "I hope you didn't miss me _too_ much. Now, we have to get going. Asuka's already gone ahead, so there's no need to wait for her."

The other two boys fell in step behind Shinji and Misao, just dumbly following them for a few seconds before one of them found his voice.

"So…where _were_ you all this time, Misao-san?" Toji asked.

Misao frowned slightly and turned to Shinji. "You didn't tell them what happened to me?"

"Of course I did," Shinji replied, deciding not to mention that he hadn't been able to bring himself to explain events to the two boys until the day after Unit One had released Misao. "They didn't believe me."

"Oh, come on, you don't really expect us to buy this whole 'absorbed into EVA' story, do you?" Toji asked.

"I'll bet you were on a secret mission or something!" Kensuke said. "You don't have to explain it all to us, Misao-san. I know it's probably classified, but just…click your heels together if you were on a secret mission."

Shinji rolled his eyes at Kensuke's antics, and Misao giggled. "I wasn't on any secret mission," she said. "I really spent the last month trapped inside of EVA."

Toji sighed. "They're not gonna tell us what actually happened, Ken," he said resignedly.

Kensuke was about to protest, but something caught his eye before he could lodge his complaint. The otaku adjusted his glasses, just to be sure he was seeing properly. Shinji and Misao were holding hands, and there was a hint of swagger in Shinji's steps that certainly had never been there before.

"Are you two…together?" he asked, pointing at their joined hands.

Shinji smiled. He hadn't actually noticed that he'd entwined his fingers with Misao's. It had just happened. "Yes," he answered. "We are."

"Really?" a surprised Toji asked. "Wow! Have you done anything ecchi yet?"

The jock slapped a hand over his mouth the moment he realized what he'd just allowed himself to blurt out. Kensuke groaned and ran a hand down his face. Misao laughed. Shinji rolled his eyes again.

"You know, Toji-kun, you're supposed to get the guy alone before you ask about that," Misao said. "But since Shinji's too much of a gentleman to just go and tell you, I'll save you the trouble of trying to drag it out of him. Yes, we did, but please keep it a secret, okay?"

Toji and Kensuke turned to look at Shinji, gaping in surprise and not a little awe. Their friend had made it to the Promised Land, and with the hottest girl in school no less!

"Seriously, don't tell anyone," Shinji said in a much less playful tone than Misao. The last thing he wanted was for his new girlfriend's reputation to be ruined, and the idea of setting the school rumor mill into overdrive didn't exactly appeal to him, either.

The "or else" was left unsaid, but the two other boys clearly heard it implied. They nodded their ascent, and Shinji immediately became cheerful again.

* * *

Ryoji Kaji sat at a table outside a small café, looking for all the world like he was just a man enjoying a hot cup of coffee in the morning. However, appearances were often deceiving in the intelligence business.

"Excuse me, sir," Kaji heard someone say, "would you mind if I sat with you?"

Kaji looked up at the man, finding him almost too nondescript. He was somewhere in his thirties, of average height and build, wearing a suit of moderate quality and holding his own cup of coffee and a pastry. There had to be at least tens of thousands of officer workers in Japan who would fit his general description. The guy was almost impossibly plain, remarkably unremarkable.

_SEELE had better start doing a better job than this, or they'll get into trouble,_ Kaji mused to himself, even as he told the man that he'd be delighted to have some company this fine morning.

"Is the table clean?" the man asked in an offhanded, too casual tone of voice. "I can't stand eating at places where they can't even be bothered to wipe off the tabletops between customers."

Kaji recognized the real question he was being asked easily. "The place is clean," he answered. "Section Two doesn't have the manpower to eavesdrop on the entire city, and this place is just one pastry shop among dozens in Tokyo-3."

The agent nodded, his eyes suddenly becoming serious and sharp as he dropped the illusion of being nothing more than a pencil pusher looking for the caffeine he'd need to make it to his lunch break. "The council seeks an appointment with the Vice Commander," the SEELE agent said.

_So this is it,_ Kaji thought, realizing that this was the starting point of a chain of events that would almost certainly end with his death.

He reacted to this realization by arching an eyebrow at the SEELE agent. "The Vice Commander? Whatever for?"

"You do not need to know that," the agent said, just a trace of sharpness in his voice. "However, I'm sure you can take a guess."

"Indeed," Kaji said.

"You are the only one with enough familiarity with NERV security that the council can depend on," the agent continued. "They expect you to produce a workable plan shortly."

"Of course," Kaji agreed.

The SEELE agent suddenly became Mr. Ordinary again, assuming his cover like he was donning a cloak. "Well, good day," he said, taking a sip of his coffee.

Kaji just nodded silently as the man walked off. _Definitely overdoing it,_ the spy thought as he watched the SEELE agent take a large bite of his pastry. _I give him three months tops out in the field before someone puts a bullet in his head. Probably still outlive me, though._

* * *

Shinji Ikari's mind was buzzing as he sat in class that day, and none of it had anything to do with the teacher's customary Second Impact lecture. It was amazing to him just how much last night had changed his perspective on things, not least of which was his attitude toward piloting EVA.

He could no longer go into battle with his goal being to win or lose so completely that Unit One was utterly destroyed. That had only worked for him in the past because he'd been largely indifferent about his own survival. Now that he was extremely happy with his life, however, he found that he very much wanted to keep living. Indeed, the future, which had always seemed so gray and uninteresting to him, was now awash with possibilities.

Thus, Shinji discovered one of the essential truths of romantic entanglements: they might bring joy previously unimaginable, but they also brought complications into one's life. Finding happiness had stripped him of the great but terrible power that only those who don't care about their survival can wield. It was well worth the trade, and he still intended to pilot to protect Misao, but it did mean a new set of worries. He now had to try and see both of them through this war alive, not just Misao, and he found himself considering the aftermath and the big picture as never before.

An instant message box then appeared on his laptop's screen suddenly, causing him to jump.

**Misa-chan313: **You're looking awfully serious, Shin-chan. Not thinking about breaking up with me I hope.

Restraining a laugh at that preposterous notion, Shinji reached out and typed a quick response.

**Ikari S.:** Not in a million years. Say, would you like to go out for ice cream after school?

**Misa-chan313:** We can't. We have harmonics tests after school today, silly man.

**Ikari S.: **How about tomorrow then?

**Misa-chan313:** You know, most guys would probably count themselves lucky to have managed to skip the dating part.

**Ikari S.: **I'm not most guys.

**Misa-chan313:** True. It's a date. ;)

* * *

The scene in the test plug control room was almost too normal. Indeed, if not for the fact that only the Third and Fourth Children were being tested that day after their long absences from the usual regimen, this harmonics test would have been completely indistinguishable from any other, with nothing to indicate the ordeals that both pilots present had recently gone through.

"It seems so strange to be back to the routine like this after such a long time of turmoil around here," Maya commented.

"I know," Ritsuko agreed. "It's for the best, though. There's no point in dwelling on what happened, and I for one, will be glad to stop pulling all-nighters here."

Maya nodded. "You know, we never did anything to celebrate the success of the rescue operation."

"That's because I don't think the rescue operation _was_ a success," Ritsuko said, sounding slightly haunted at how her science had failed her.

Wincing at her poor of choice of words, Maya plowed ahead anyway. "I'm just saying that we might as well take the opportunity to have a little fun, since we've had precious little to be happy about until just recently," she said. "We should go out for a drink or something."

Ritsuko smiled. "That does sound like a good idea. How does Friday night work for you?"

"Friday's fine," Maya replied casually, tightly controlling her excitement.

"The test has been completed," Sakura announced, turning to face Akagi as she typed in the commands to open the test plugs.

"How'd we do, Rits?" Misao called up.

"Your average synchronization ratio increased by ten points since last time," Ritsuko replied. "However, you've still got a ways to go to catch up to Shinji, Fourth Child."

"Huh?"

"Shinji's sync ratio was rock steady at one to one for the entire length of the test," Ritsuko said, unable to prevent surprise from tarnishing her professional tone. "I've never seen anything like it."

"Good job, you two," Maya said. "I think that's enough for today. You're both dismissed."

"Right!" the two pilots chorused, getting up and departing their test plugs.

"Well, I'd better go see about pushing some of that paper off my desk if I want to be able to go out on Friday," Maya said. "I'll see you later, sempai."

Ritsuko nodded sympathetically. With the Fourth Child back in the land of the living, Maya no longer had any excuse to put off the mountain of paperwork that had fallen onto her desk in the aftermath of the Fourteenth Angel's attack. Not that the bottle blonde had had it so easy, either, but at least for her, things were winding down to a more normal level of activity.

Heading down to her own office, Ritsuko booted up her computer and was working on answering a number of messages from the various scientists and technicians who worked under her when she heard the door slide open. The scientist turned to find Misao standing in the doorway, now wearing a school uniform and her purple hair still damp from the shower that being dunked in LCL necessitated.

"Hello, Misato," Ritsuko said. "What can I do for you?"

"I want a prescription for the pill," Misao answered without preamble.

She then braced herself for the storm of recriminations and angry ranting that she was sure would be forthcoming. She and Shinji had already agreed that hiding their new relationship from NERV would be ultimately futile at best, and they were prepared to refuse to pilot Unit One if the organization tried to split them up. Shinji was leery about playing that card too often, but he was as intolerant of the idea of NERV butting into their private lives and trying to ruin their happiness as she was.

And thanks to post-Second Impact laws meant to increase birthrates, certain forms of birth control that had once been available over the counter no longer were.

"So, you two finally figured it out," Ritsuko said.

"Wait…no angry lecture or screaming or anything?" a very surprised Misao asked, hardly daring to believe her luck.

"That depends," Ritsuko said. "You haven't done anything with Shinji without protection, have you?"

"No, of course not," Misao scoffed. "I had condoms left over from my 'previous life' that I kept around just in case, but I hate the damn things, which is why I'm here."

"In that case, it's fine with me," Ritsuko responded as she took out a prescription pad. "Frankly, I think trying to keep you two apart would be a fool's task, and I've already got more of those than I want."

She wrote out the desired prescription with a quick scribble and then handed it to Misao, who took it gratefully. "Arigato, Ritsuko."

The faux blonde nodded, briefly considering asking about how Shinji was. Had Misato still been on the edge of thirty and recently gotten together with a new boyfriend, Ritsuko wouldn't have hesitated to demand all the juicy details. However, it would just be way too weird in the current situation. It was just another sign of how Misato's transformation had caused their friendship to fade to next to nothing.

"You're welcome," she said. "Now get out of here. I'm sure you'd rather be spending time with your new boyfriend than with me."

* * *

Internet cafes had truly been a godsend for men in the intelligence business during the information age. So long as the spy in question was computer savvy enough, they could perform what had once been done via clandestine and dangerous meetings and exchanges with the click of mouse, all while sitting next to a guy playing World of Warcraft.

This was how Kaji transferred the plan he'd drawn up for abducting the Vice Commander to SEELE.

_Such an easy thing, literally the push of a button,_ he mused. _I wonder if anyone will mourn me when I'm gone._

The spy then chuckled to himself. _I'm getting melodramatic in my final days._

He got up and left, wondering if there was any place he could find some good Peking duck at this hour.

* * *

"I thought that nothing was supposed to be as good as the first time," Shinji said, still panting slightly as he looked up at the ceiling of Misao's room.

He was really going to have to move at least some of his stuff in here, he mused.

"That's just a myth," Misao replied, smiling.

"Obviously," he said with a grin.

Her eyes flicked over to the door and Shinji frowned. "Why do you keep doing that?"

Misao chuckled. "I keep expecting Asuka to barge in and tell us to shut the hell up."

Shinji rolled his eyes, grinning. "Asuka's not gonna do that," he assured her. "She doesn't wanna see us like this."

Misao snickered and lay back on the futon, having to admit that Shinji did have a point there. She could just imagine the Second Child screaming about her eyes burning if she and Shinji ever accidentally gave Asuka a show.

A comfortable silence descended, and for a moment it seemed as if they'd both drift off to sleep. Then, Shinji spoke. "Misao-chan?"

"Yes?"

"Remember when I told you yesterday that I might be dead if not for you?" he asked. She nodded and he continued. "I absolutely meant that, you know, because you're the reason I've been piloting EVA."

She blinked. "Me? You've piloted for me? The whole time?"

"Ever since you were made an EVA pilot," Shinji confirmed. "I really wanted a good reason to pilot. Protecting you and keeping you out of EVA was it."

Misao was flabbergasted by his confession. Discovering that Shinji had been, ever since she'd been named the Fourth Child, to keep her from getting what she'd wanted, out of a desire to protect her, was stunning. It was almost funny to think about, actually.

"But…but _why_?" she asked.

"EVA always just seemed like such a…sinister thing," Shinji tried to explain. "Like it would suck the life right out of you and destroy you. I mean, look what it's been doing to Asuka."

"What about you?" Misao replied.

"Me?"

"Yes, you," she said, poking him in the chest. "EVA hasn't sucked the life out of _you_. You've only gotten stronger since the day I brought you into NERV."

Shinji just stared dumbly at her. He had rarely thought about his own state, and when he had, he'd just taken it for a given that it was simply a matter of time before Evangelion left him a burnt out husk of a person. But there was no arguing with her logic; he freely admitted that he _never_ could have bested his father in a battle of wills before EVA.

"So you don't need to devote yourself to keeping me out of EVA," Misao said, able to follow the course of Shinji's thoughts fairly easily. "Because I'd like to protect you, too."

He smiled. "I won't make keeping you out of the entry plug my goal, anymore. Whichever one of us NERV believes is better for the job will pilot Unit One."

Misao rolled her eyes. "Easy for you to say, Mr. One Hundred Percent Sync Ratio."

"Do you feel like you need to fight the Angels?" Shinji asked slowly, clearly reluctant to pose the question.

"No, not anymore," Misao admitted. "After the Fourteenth…I think that was enough for me."

He nodded. "I understand."

* * *

The next day began like any other for Kozo Fuyutski. He went through his morning rituals like always, left his home like always, and then boarded a train like always. As usual, the one heading down to the Geofront was deserted besides him. The only people who ever headed down to the Geofront worked for NERV, and Kozo used his powers as Vice Commander to give himself a rather irregular schedule, guaranteeing that he missed the morning rush. He always had hated crowds.

Then, when the train was about halfway to the tunnel that would take it down to the Geofront, it came to an unscheduled stop. That wasn't part of his usual routine at all.

Hoping that the cause of the stop was nothing more alarming than some kind of technical problem, Kozo set his newspaper and stood.

He wasn't very surprised to realize that a number of armed men had converged upon the train.

"Damn it," he muttered. "And I haven't even had my coffee yet."

The group of commandos swiftly pried open the doors and barged in, at least a dozen of them pointing guns at him. "Professor Fuyutski," one of them said. "You will come with us."

"Very well," the old man agreed, knowing better than to try and resist.

Why_ did I ever let Ikari talk me into joining GEHRIN?_ He wondered tiredly as he was led into an unmarked car.

* * *

When the bell marking the end of the school day sounded, Misao had to resist the urge to jump to her feet and shout "Hallelujah!"

Sensei had been in rare form that day, reciting the UN cover story about Second Impact with an unusual passion that made it hard for her not to scoff in class. Add in his recounting of _exactly_ how Second Impact had affected _every_ last one of his relatives (and he had a lot of them), and you had the secret to slowing time to a crawl.

Eager to escape, she began packing her books up almost frantically, but somehow someone managed to get himself ready to leave before her.

"Hello, Misao-chan."

She looked up to see Shinji smiling easily down at her. "Hello, yourself," she replied with a grin.

"I believe we had plans for after school today," he said.

"Did we? I don't recall," she lied, voice coy.

"Yes, I'm quite certain that we did," he said, playing along. "I'm going to have to insist that you accompany me."

She smirked. "Oh, looks like Shin-chan's becoming all dominant. I think I like it."

He blushed at that but wasn't reduced to a gibbering mess like he would have been not long ago.

_Hmm, I'm going to have to figure out new ways to get a rise out of him,_ she thought as she finished packing up her books and accompanied him out of the school.

The happy couple made it as far as the sidewalk outside the school before they were intercepted by a pair of Section Two men in suits. "Pilot Katsuragi," one of them said, "you will come with us."

Misao frowned. "What's this about?" she asked.

"We are not at liberty to discus it," the agent answered curtly. "You must come with us."

The man's tone of voice made it clear that she was going whether she agreed to or not.

"If she's going with you, then so am I," Shinji said firmly.

The two Section Two agents traded a brief look before the lead one spoke up again. "Very well."

* * *

Less than an hour later, the two EVA pilots found themselves in a dark office located within the bowels of NERV headquarters. Seated behind a desk that stood in an island of light created by a low hanging light fixture was a man who, to Shinji's eye, was more or less interchangeable with any other Section Two goon.

Misao, however, knew better. "Captain Chiron," she greeted, voice tight.

Shinji's eyebrows went up. He had never met Chiron before, but he knew him by reputation. The man was the chief of Section Two, and was said to be very competent, unlike most of the men who worked under him. He was also rumored to be extremely ruthless.

"Pilot Katsuragi," Chiron acknowledged Misao. He then turned to the men who had brought the pilots in. "I didn't ask for the Third."

"He insisted on accompanying her, sir. It seemed the best way to avoid an incident."

"Whatever," Chiron snorted.

"Why did you have me pulled off the street?" Misao demanded, getting Chiron's attention back on her. "I have places to be, you know."

Chiron favored her with a cold, contemptuous look before he answered. "Early this morning, Kozo Fuyutski was abducted by unknown assailants."

Misao's eyes widened. "The Vice Commander?"

Chiron nodded. "Yes. Only someone with intimate knowledge of our security protocols could have set this up. We suspect that Ryoji Kaji played a part in this abduction."

"You don't think I helped him, do you?" Misao asked, incredulous. "I haven't had the kind of authority or connections that would require for months. Since before he came to Japan!"

"We must consider every possibility in light of this crisis," Chiron replied levelly. "Therefore, I'm afraid we must place you into confinement until the situation has been resolved."

"Fine," Misao growled, knowing full well there was no getting out of this.

"Hang on a minute!" Shinji spoke up. "Captain Chiron, please allow me to join Misao in the confinement cell."

"That won't be necessary," Chiron said.

"I consider Ryoji Kaji to be a friend of mine," Shinji said, narrowing his eyes. "He gave me some very good advice once. I feel like I owe the man. Really, it would be a risk to let me around free during this time as well."

A small smirk made its way onto Chiron's stony face. "Fine, have it your way, Mr. Ikari. Throw them both into the brig."

The two of them were taken by the Section Two agents to a small, pitch dark cell and shoved roughly inside. Seconds later, they could hear the lock being engaged.

_Déjà vu all over again,_ Shinji thought angrily, recalling his previous stay in confinement.

"What the hell was that all about?" he wondered.

"Chiron and I knew each other from before we were both assigned to NERV," Misao grumbled. "The man hates my guts, and the feeling's mutual. We'd probably be butting heads all the time if I was still the Ops Director. He must've decided this was a good opportunity to make me miserable."

"Jerk," Shinji grumbled, sitting down on the hard little bed, which was really more of a shelf than anything else.

Misao sat down next to him. "What advice did Kaji give you? Or were you just making stuff up to get thrown in the slammer with me?"

"He convinced me to tell you that I love you," Shinji replied.

Misao blinked, taken aback. She hadn't exactly been kind to Kaji since his arrival in Japan, just the opposite in fact. Yet in spite of that he had not only agreed to try and get her in to see Shinji in the aftermath of the Thirteenth Angel, but he had also subtly nudged she and Shinji together.

And if things turned out as she suspected they would, she would never get a chance to thank the insufferable man. Wonderful.

"Shin-chan?" she said as she sat down next to him.

"Yes?"

"Thank you, for insisting on being in here with me," she said. "I don't like the darkness."

He wrapped his arms around her. "You're welcome."

* * *

"Come now, Professor Fuyutski, you do realize that the longer you fail to cooperate, the longer you will be held here, do you not?" SEELE-07 asked the Vice Commander.

Fuyutski sighed. The old man was sitting bound to a chair, surrounded by the twelve black monoliths that represented the SEELE council for hours now. They wanted to know what Gendo was really up to in NERV, but the Vice Commander wasn't about to tell them anything.

The door to the room suddenly opened, flooding it with light that dispelled the holographic monoliths like the malevolent specters they were. Fuyutski winced slightly as Kaji entered and began to work at undoing the bonds that trapped the Vice Commander in his chair.

"Hello, sir," Kaji greeted amicably.

"You do realize that this will likely be your last assignment, don't you, Agent Kaji?" Fuyutski asked sardonically, surprised at Kaji's cheerfulness.

"Yes," Kaji answered, more seriously. "But that's all right. All I want is to get as close to the truth as I can. To hold it within my hands. That's all I need. It's all I have, anyway."

"Indeed?" Fuyutski sighed, finding it rather depressing that even a younger man like Kaji was as nearly devoid of reasons to continue on as he. "Then let's be off."

* * *

Shinji and Misao both looked up as they heard the tumblers turning in the heavy cell door.

"That was fast," Shinji commented, knowing they couldn't have been incarcerated for more than a few hours.

"Yeah," Misao agreed softly, knowing the fast resolution of the situation probably didn't bode well for Kaji.

The door opened, and both EVA pilots winced at the light that poured inside.

"The situation has been resolved," a Section Two agent announced. "The two of you are free to go."

Misao nodded. "Come on, Shinji," she said urgently, shielding her eyes with a hand as she ventured into the hall.

The Third Child nodded and followed her, despite the way the lights in the hallway made his eyes water. The two had soon made it out of NERV headquarters and onto a train that would take them back to their apartment. Misao could barely contain her anxiety as she willed the train to move faster, finding herself feeling jittery and sick.

"I shouldn't be this afraid for him," she said softly, "but…"

"Hey, it's all right," Shinji reassured her.

Part of him actually was jealous and annoyed at the worry Misao was expressing for her ex-boyfriend, but Shinji ignored that. Kaji was no threat to his relationship with Misao, Shinji knew, and the man was obviously in some very serious trouble. Getting jealous of someone in Kaji's situation would be nothing short of idiotic.

Misao, meanwhile, was just trying not to start wringing her hands. _I shouldn't be this afraid for him,_ she repeated silently. _We haven't been together in years. I didn't even _want_ to see him again._

However, Kaji had been her first love, as well as the first man she had made love to—and yes, amongst all the drunken debauchery they had occasionally done what could accurately described as lovemaking, if only rarely. Much as she might like to pretend otherwise, and much as she would _never_ even consider leaving Shinji to go back to Kaji, the man did have an irrevocable place in her heart.

The train pulled into the station a few minutes later, and the pair quickly made their way back to the apartment. Asuka was apparently absent, fortunately, and Misao went straight for her answering machine, discovering the light on it blinking, as she had both hoped and feared. With a badly shaking hand, she reached down and pressed the button.

"You have—one—new message," the machine announced before switching over to the recording Kaji had left. "Katsuragi, hey, it's me. Sorry to disturb your new life with this, but…I guess I just felt I needed someone to say good-bye to."

Misao's eyes slid shut as the sure knowledge that Kaji was dead struck her.

"I want you to know that you were the best woman I ever knew," Kaji's message continued. "I wish you all the best. Shinji, too. Anyway, I'm sorry for the trouble I've caused. Oh, and there's one more thing. I've been growing…flowers. Shinji knows where they are. I'd like it very much if one of you could water them for me. Sayonara."

The message ended and Misao put her head, feeling her eyes growing liquid. "Idiot," she muttered.

She felt Shinji's arm going around her shoulders then. "Misao-chan…"

She looked up at him, and in his eyes she clearly saw that he was willing to do whatever she asked. For a moment, she was very tempted to ask him to take her to bed, knowing from experience that even pain of this sort couldn't touch her during the height of orgasmic bliss. She managed to resist the urge, however, finding the idea of using Shinji in such a way to be nothing short of disgusting. He deserved better than that from her.

"Just hold me," she whispered.

Shinji nodded and embraced her, gently rocking her and stroking her hair. Misao's hand went out and pressed the delete button the machine, then she allowed herself to be supported by Shinji.

* * *

Meanwhile, down in the Geofront, Dr. Ritsuko Akagi sat in her office, regarding a computer chip that was smaller than a postage stamp. She held it between her thumb and forefinger as she regarded it. It was such a small thing to contain the fruits of Kaji's suicidal ambitions, but such were the wonders of modern technology.

She wondered if Kaji had known just how deeply she was immersed within the quagmire of secrets, lies and schemes that existed within NERV.

He probably hadn't known all the details, she decided. He wouldn't have given her the chip if he'd known everything about her, but she felt fairly certain that he'd at least suspected. Yet he'd given it to her anyway, probably because he didn't want to saddle either Misao or Asuka with the task.

_Probably a good move,_ she mused, taking a sip of cold coffee and trying not to wince at the taste. _After all, they'd go looking, and they'd be destroyed even sooner than necessary._

Minutes passed, and the faux blonde continued to just stare silently at the little chip.

_The right thing to do would be to take this thing, and use it along with my knowledge of the MAGI to expose Ikari and SEELE's plans to the entire world,_ she mused. _End all this Instrumentality madness once and for all._

Ritsuko dropped the chip to the floor and then crushed it beneath her heel, cursing her weakness.

"Sempai?"

The blonde jumped and turned toward her door, seeing Maya standing there. She immediately cursed herself for not bothering to lock the door, wondering how much her former assistant had just seen.

"Yes, Maya?"

"We had plans tonight, remember?" Maya asked, confused at Ritsuko's fearful expression.

"Plans?" Ritsuko echoed blankly, before she managed to remember. "Oh! Right! Of course, how silly of me to forget! Just let me hang up my lab coat and we'll go."

Feeling supremely relieved that Maya apparently hadn't seen her destroying the chip, Ritsuko quickly got ready for a night out on the town, as if her old friend from collage wasn't lying murdered somewhere.

* * *

Author's Notes: Not a whole lot happening here, I realize, but I figured that Shinji and Misao deserved at least the better part of one chapter to ride the emotional high before things started intruding on their new happiness. I also wanted to get various little details out of the way. If you want to see more action, well, fear not, for next chapter, something wicked this way comes. Namely, the Fifteenth Angel.

zOMG, somebody's been reading Lord Raa's works. :P On the more serious matters, well, I may have understated the self-loathing Misato had, but Misao has a somewhat different set of issues this time around. Still, I get your point. And where Misao is concerned, Shinji tends to work with a rather unique definition of the word "pure." That was covered way back in chapter two. As for the conversation between Yui and Misao, for some reason, I just liked the idea of Misao never realizing who exactly it was that she was talking to.

Major Powell, the technobabble was pulled right out of the episode, sir. It's true it doesn't really make sense, but since Ritsuko's attempt at getting Misao out failed, it doesn't have to.

As always, thanks to all my readers and reviewers. Now for some fun.

* * *

Omakes

Obligatory Ranma Reference

It was just an ordinary day in EVA cage number seven, where Unit One was berthed. Engineers and technicians went casually about, performing all the dull but necessary tasks to keep Unit One both frozen safely in cryo-stasis and ready to be defrosted and deployed at a moment's notice.

Then the MAGI commenced its daily download of the footage from all the secret listening and recording devices that Section Two had put everywhere in Tokyo-3. Including the Katsuragi apartment.

And Unit One, as usual, stealthily downloaded several of these files, just to see how her son was doing.

The eyes of the purple EVA suddenly lit up with a blazing white light. Seconds later, the unmistakable sound of metal tearing and then shattering filled the cage as the restraints holding Unit One's shut broken.

Several of the NERV personnel present went running for the exits screaming. Others just watched in a kind of horrified awe as the mighty biomechanical giant muscled its way out of all the restraints upon it.

Then, to the surprise of everyone still present, the EVA pulled a pair of massive victory fans from seemingly nowhere and began to dance around the cage, causing the whole base to shake.

"WAAAAAAH! MY SON IS SO MANLY!" Unit One shouted.

* * *

"Unit One went berserk and is screaming _what_?" Gendo asked, pressing the phone closer to his ear to make sure he was hearing properly.

The frightened sounding man on the other end of the line again quoted the purple EVA, and Gendo nodded.

"I see," he said. "In that case, it probably won't hurt anyone so long as we keep out of its way. Wait until Unit One deactivates itself, then restrain it again."

Gendo then hung up and began to unlock one of the draws on his desk.

"What's going on?" Fuyutski asked.

"Apparently my son managed to get laid," Gendo answered, removing a bottle of brandy and a pair of glasses from the previously locked drawer. "I think we should toast the occasion."

Fuyutski arched an eyebrow. "Ikari…you don't even like your son. Why are we celebrating his entrance into manhood?"

"Mostly because this is really good brandy, and it would be a shame if we hadn't finished it by when it's time to make the end of the world happen," Gendo answered casually, pouring them both a glass.

"Ah," Fuyutski said, taking his glass. "I see."

"Cheers," Gendo said, clinking their glasses together before knocking back the brandy.

(A/N: I've never even seen Ranma 1/2, but I still know enough to make use of this running joke. It's _that_ popular in general anime fandom.)

* * *

Curiosity Killed the Cat Lover

"In that case, it's fine with me," Ritsuko responded as she took out a prescription pad. "Frankly, I think trying to keep you two apart would be a fool's task, and I'm already maxed out on those."

She wrote out the desired prescription with a quick scribble and then handed it to Misao, who took it. "Arigato, Ritsuko."

The faux blonde nodded, briefly considering asking about how Shinji was. Mostly because miserly loves company, and it would do her a world of good to know that someone else was subjected to the massive failures that were the bedroom performances of an Ikari man.

"So, how was…? I mean, how many…?" the scientist stammered, the creepiness factor of the whole thing starting to get to her.

Misao didn't seem to mind, though. The purple haired EVA pilot grinned and held up four fingers.

Ritsuko's eyes widened and her jaw dropped. "No…no way…he couldn't…he didn't…"

"He could and he did," Misao said, then her eyes grew unfocused and her grin widened. "Wow, did he ever…"

Ritsuko just stared stupefied at her friend for several seconds, then…

* * *

**"IT'S NOT FAIR! WHY DO _YOU_ GET THE IKARI FAMILY LOVE MACHINE WHILE _I'M_ STUCK WITH COMMANDER SLAM-BAM-THANK-YOU-MA'AM?!"**

Maya and Sakura, who'd been walking back to the command center together, both stopped dead in their tracks when the scream went echoing through the base.

"Was that Dr. Akagi?" Sakura asked after a few seconds of stunned silence.

"I…I think it was," Maya said.

"Well…that's much more about her than I ever wanted to learn," Sakura commented.

"Yeah," Maya agreed.

_Damn it! I didn't know sempai was sleeping with the Commander! I can't do anything with her now! I'll get bastard germs! Which are like cooties but much worse!_ Maya thought in dismay.

"Hey, Sakura?" Maya said as they began walking again.

"Yes, Major?"

"Want to go out for a drink this Friday?" Maya asked.

"Sure, why not?" Sakura replied.

* * *

Writing Checks She Won't Cash...

"Yes, I'm quite certain that we did," Shinji said, playing along. "I'm going to have to insist that you accompany me."

Misao smirked. "Oh, looks like Shin-chan's becoming all dominant. I think I like it."

He blushed at that but wasn't reduced to a gibbering mess like he would have been not long ago.

_Hmm, I'm going to have to figure out new ways to get a rise out of him,_ she thought as she finished packing up her books and accompanied him out of the school.

"Hey, Rei!" Misao called, spotting the First Child.

"Yes, Misao?" Rei said, walking over to them.

"Would you like to join us for some ice cream and a kinky three-way?" Misao asked.

"_Wha-What?!_" Shinji exclaimed, flushing beat red.

_There we go,_ Misao thought with satisfaction.

"Yes, I believe I would like that quite a lot," Rei replied in her usual soft voice, a faint blush on her cheeks the only visible indication that she wasn't talking about the weather. "Will the ice cream come before we all become one or during the act itself?"

Misao's eyes widened and she stared dumbly at the First Child.

"Score!" Shinji exclaimed, throwing a fist up in the air. "Misao-chan, you are the _best_ girlfriend ever!"


	17. Chapter 17

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

Chapter Seventeen: **To Be/Loneliness and Comfort**

If there was one constant in the lives of the EVA pilots, it was the harmonics tests. Assuming they weren't dead, missing, stuck inside Evangelion, or on strike, NERV brought them in like clockwork to gauge their current level of ability with their Evangelions.

Just about everyone involved hated them, for various different reasons, but the damn things were necessary.

"How are they doing?" Maya asked.

Ritsuko didn't respond, too lost in her own thoughts. The feel of the microchip Kaji had given her crunching beneath her heel hadn't left her mind once since she'd done it. Even when she'd been out with Maya, the act of destroying what Kaji had literally sacrificed everything for had never quite left her mind, and afterwards it began to rest more and more heavily upon her conscience.

"Sempai?"

_Between that chip and my skills with the MAGI, I could have brought an end to Instrumentality,_ Ritsuko thought for what had to be the thousandth time. _But I just crushed it, and for what? Because I was afraid. And for him._

Him. What the hell had _he_ ever done to earn such loyalty from her? Hell, Ritsuko had accidentally caught Shinji displaying more affection and respect for Misato than Gendo had ever shown her in the course of _their_ relationship.

_How can those two even be related? They're like polar opposites!_ Ritsuko wondered. _Or at least the effect they have on the women they're with are._

"_Ritsuko!_"

"Huh? What?" the faux blonde asked as she was pulled out of her thoughts.

"I asked you how the pilots were doing on the test," Maya said, her annoyance quickly turning into concern. "Are you all right, sempai? You don't seem like yourself today."

_Even my former assistant cares about me more than my so-called lover,_ Ritsuko thought bitterly. _Much more, in fact._

"Fine. I just have a lot on my mind right now," Ritsuko said, then quickly continued before Maya could make further inquiries. "Rei's average score is 63 percent, which is pretty much par the course for her. Shinji's still sitting pretty at 100 percent. Misato's at 88 percent, a new high for her. However, Asuka's score has dropped a whole eight points."

Maya sighed. "I feared as much. Her ability to synchronize with EVA has been deteriorating ever since the battle against the Fourteenth Angel."

"We may need to find a replacement pilot soon," Ritsuko said grimly, before opening a channel between the control room and the Unit Two test plug. "Asuka, your scores are dropping. Concentrate on the connection with EVA and ignore everything else."

"I'm trying!" Asuka snapped testily, not even bothering to open her eyes. "It's not as easy as the baka makes it look, you know!"

Maya sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Today's test is completed," she announced. "The Children are free to go."

* * *

Asuka sighed quietly as she and the other EVA pilots exited the test plugs. She knew she should be angry that Shinji was so effortlessly maintaining his one to one sync ratio, which had been the holy grail that Asuka herself had spent nearly ten years pursuing. However, she found that she simply didn't have the energy to get mad.

_Gott, what have I come to when I just let a baka like Shinji get away with making _me_ look like the amateur here?_ She wondered, her gaze flicking over the Third Child.

Shinji was talking quietly with Misao, and they were holding hands. Asuka rolled her eyes. The two had recently stopped being revoltingly lovey-dovey, but they were still constantly reminding her that not only were they surpassing her at EVA, they were happier to boot.

"I'm going to the mall with Hikari after this," Asuka announced to the two of them. "Don't bother waiting for me to catch a ride back to the apartment with you."

They nodded absently, still talking quietly with those oh so enviable, contented little smiles, and Asuka went to the locker room to change, ignoring Rei as usual.

* * *

Three quarters of an hour later found Asuka walking through a department store with Hikari, the two girls scrutinizing the local merchants' offerings with a critical eye. Or at least, that's what they would have had people believe. Asuka was too lost in thought to truly see any of the clothing that was available, while Hikari was more concerned with her friend than what she was going to be wearing the future.

_Asuka seems so…subdued,_ the class rep thought.

It was strange, and not a little disturbing, to see her friend like that. Ever since Hikari had known the Second Child, Asuka had been practically overflowing with energy and vitality, as well as being outspoken and bold in a way no culturally Japanese girl would be.

"Asuka, are you all right?" Hikari asked abruptly, finally unable to stand wondering about her friend any more.

"Wrong? Why do you think something's wrong?" Asuka replied, a little too quickly.

Hikari narrowed her eyes slightly. "We've already been in here for ten minutes and you haven't picked anything you want _or_ complained about how unimaginative Japanese designers are to me."

Asuka blinked. Clearly, Hikari knew her far too well.

"So?" Hikari pressed. "I know something's bothering you, so you might as well spit it out."

"It's nothing big really," Asuka said dismissively, "just some…minor annoyances at NERV and at home."

"I see," Hikari said. "I know you probably can't tell me about what's going on at NERV, but what's wrong at home?"

Asuka very nearly snapped at Hikari to mind her own buisness, then checked herself at the last moment. Her friend was just concerned for her, and she supposed it really wouldn't hurt to vent a bit.

"I haven't been able to get in touch with Kaji in days," Asuka said. "When I try and call him I get a recording telling me that his number is no longer in service."

"There's probably just something wrong with his phone," Hikari said. "You said that his job would take him away from the city for long stretches at a time, right?"

"Yeah, that's why he couldn't be my guardian," Asuka replied.

"Then I think it's a bit too early to start worrying," Hikari said. "Is that all that's got you down?"

"No, there's more. You know that Misao and the baka are an item now, right?" Asuka asked.

"It would be kind of hard not to know that," Hikari commented, thinking of how the new couple had been cheerfully ignoring school rules prohibiting public displays of affection. Had they been just about anyone else, Hikari probably would have forced them to stop a long time ago.

"Well, the two of them are doing it," Asuka grumbled.

"Oh," Hikari said, going slightly pale. "I see."

"No comments about how they're living in sin?" Asuka asked, somewhat annoyed.

She'd been hoping to see someone else getting worked up about her house mates' new favorite activity.

Hikari looked away sheepishly. "I didn't really understand just how much danger being an EVA pilot entailed back then," she said. "So, while I don't exactly condone what they're doing, I can't bring myself to condemn it, either. I mean, if they wait, it might never happen."

The ultra conservative class rep left it unsaid that if a guy she liked did for her what she'd heard Shinji had done for Misao when the Thirteenth Angel had struck, she'd probably have a hard time denying him anything, either. Indeed, she might not even try very hard to muster up the will to say no to him.

"I guess," Asuka said. "But the two of them are just so…so…"

"What?" Hikari asked.

"Enthusiastic," Asuka replied, settling on the closest word she felt she could say. "I'll bet they would have turned the apartment into a real den of debauchery if I wasn't there, and I can never shake the thought that maybe they _are_ when I'm not around. For all I know, they could be in my bed right this instant!"

Hikari laughed at the absurd idea. "Oh, please, if they were that suicidal, they'd probably just ask you to kill them first," she said. "Seriously, I'll grow wings and learn to fly before Shinji and Misao do _that_ in your bed!"

"Yeah, I guess that's true." Asuka said with a small smile, and for that moment, everything was all right again, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof.

It was truly a pity that it was not to last.

* * *

"I'm home," Misao called as she strode into the apartment, back from a brief trip to the local grocery store.

No call of "welcome home" greeted her in response, and she frowned slightly. Shinji was supposed to be home. She was about to call for him when a certain water fowl offered his own greeting.

"Wark!"

Smiling, Misao placed the brown bag she held on the table and then squatted down to pet Pen-Pen on the head. "Hey there, boy."

"Wark!"

"Is Shinji around?" she asked.

"Wark!" Pen-Pen replied, pointing with a flipper in the direction of the living room.

"Thanks."

"Wark."

She ventured into the living room, where she found Shinji sitting on the couch with his laptop open. Misao walked up behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders, causing him to start.

"Oh, Misao-chan," he said, turning to look at her. "It's you. I didn't hear you come in."

"I'd figured," she said, "what are you doing that's so interesting, Shin-chan?"

"Just a little research," Shinji answered.

Misao glanced over his shoulder at his laptop's screen and saw files and data that Shinji could only have gotten with his low level access to the MAGI. "Not for school," she noted.

"No, not for school," he agreed, then sighed. "Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm starting to realize how much stuff at NERV never quite made sense, like how the Commander ordered that Unit One be evacuated first when the Eleventh Angel attacked, or how almost all the Angels seem to come straight here for some reason NERV keeps totally secret. Or even just how we call these monsters Angels. It's just…wrong, and it worries me."

Misao nodded. Not long ago, she would have said he was being paranoid, but after the multiple disasters and near disasters of the past few months, she wasn't so sure anymore.

"Any organization like NERV is certain to have at least a few shady dealings going on. I mean, the obscene amount of money that flows through the place pretty much guarantees that by itself," Misao mused. "A man could become extremely wealthy skimming just a tiny fraction of a percent of NERV's budget."

"Somehow I don't really picture my father as the embezzlement type," Shinji said. "I think he's got something else entirely in mind, something much bigger."

"It's possible," Misao conceded, feeling slightly queasy.

_Anyone with sole control over all the EVA Units could conquer the world after the war against the Angels is finished,_ she added silently.

Quite frankly, though, she found the fact that Shinji was getting curious about what NERV was really trying to do, so shortly after Kaji had died trying to discover just that, disturbed her far more than the possibly of Gendo trying to crown himself Emperor of the Earth.

Shinji nodded. "But I can't even make a guess at what he's planning. Everything just doesn't add up."

"You're trying to see the whole picture when the Commander's only let you see a handful of the pieces of the puzzle," Misao said, trying to dissuade him from further investigations. "I don't think it's possible to figure it out. The best we can do is protect each other as much as we can and hope it all turns out all right."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Shinji said resignedly.

"What brought on this sudden curiosity, anyway?" Misao asked.

"I guess I'm just more concerned now with how the aftermath of the war against the Angels will go," Shinji said, giving her a smile. "Since you and I got together, I've been thinking about the future a lot more."

Misao smiled back at him, pleased to see actual anticipation for life after EVA. Knowing that she was responsible for it being there was definitely a bonus as well.

"I'm glad," she said, giving him a small peck on the cheek. "You'll have to tell me exactly what you've got planned for after the war's won later. Right now, though, the only thing in the future I'm concerned about is dinner. I'm pretty sure you promised to make fried shrimp tonight."

Shinji frowned slightly. "I…don't remember that."

"Oh, no, I'm certain you did, Shin-chan," Misao replied, speaking right into his ear in a very sultry voice. "You promised."

Shinji felt his skin breaking out in goose bumps, and a very pleasant sort of shiver went through him. He was now more sure than ever that he'd never made any vow to make one of Misao's favorite meals that evening…but it wasn't like he'd had plans to cook something else.

"Well," he said, "I guess a promise is a promise, after all."

Just then the door to the apartment opened and Asuka entered. The redhead's relatively placid expression darkened the moment she spotted Shinji and Misao in close proximity to one another.

"Perverts," she growled before storming off to her room.

Shinji blinked as he heard her door slamming. He and Misao hadn't even been kissing. "What's with her?" he asked.

"I think it's her time of the month," Misao said.

"Oh," Shinji winced. "Sugoi."

* * *

"How is the Second Child doing?" Ritsuko asked.

It had been a week since the last harmonics test, and the Second Child was being tested alone. This was ostensibly because the testing of the other Children had been thrown off by various things, and NERV wasn't willing to go the trouble to get them all back on the same schedule. In reality, it was because the brass had finally realized that it was probably better for everyone if Asuka was tested alone.

"She's down by over twelve points," Sakura said worriedly.

"That's barely above the absolute borderline," Ritsuko noted grimly, shaking her head.

She had known that the skills of the Second Child, once their best pilot (at least on paper), were eroding, but even she hadn't realized how quickly Asuka was deteriorating.

"I was afraid of this," Maya sighed. "Feeling like she's lost to both Shinji and Misao has really damaged her pride."

"We may have to replace her soon if this downward trend doesn't reverse itself," Ritsuko said.

Maya nodded sadly. She was unable to dispute her former mentor's conclusion, but the idea of stripping the Second Child of her position as the pilot for Unit Two pained her, knowing what the effect on Asuka would probably be.

"Asuka," Akagi spoke into the microphone, "you're all done for the day."

* * *

"Mein Gott," Asuka groaned as she leaned on one of the sinks in NERV public restroom, "why do I have to go through this hell just because I'm a girl? It's not like I want to have children!"

Of course, the pain from her 'monthly visitor' only seemed especially bad that month because it was exacerbating all the other crap that was going on in her life. Getting her Unit Two torn to pieces by the Fourteenth Angel, only to have Misao and Unit One destroy it single-handed was something she hadn't gotten over yet. Might never get over. Her experiences from the battle against the Twelfth Angel continued to echo through her mind, and the memories of it had even grown harder to suppress as time had gone by.

And Kaji, the one person she felt she could talk to all of this with and not be viewed as simply a bitchy, overly dramatic child for it had seemingly vanished from the face of the planet.

"Damn it," she whispered.

Everything was falling apart, including herself. Her dreams and expectations had all crumbled as they met with reality, like a ship thrown against the rocks by the waves. Her control over herself was following, and most people were avoiding her now as a result.

_Doesn't anybody realize that EVA is all I have?_ She thought despondently as she stared at her reflection, wondering where the confidant and neigh invincible Great Asuka Langley Soryu had gone.

_You have grown to need praise as much as—_

_SHUT UP!_ Asuka mentally roared, not wanting to hear those accursed words in her head ever again but knowing they'd be back eventually.

She splashed some cold water on her face, but found that this only reminded her of the other night at the apartment, where she'd stood in the bathroom and stared silently at the full bathtub for nearly a half an hour. Knowing she could get into it and never feel her shame or anger or the pain of failure ever again. It would have been easy; she'd trained her lungs to accept liquid, after all.

In the end, only the tattered remnants of her pride had kept her from taking the easy way out.

"Pull it together, Asuka," she urged herself as she wiped her face dry with a paper towel.

The Second Child left the restroom and ventured into the hallways, intent on nothing more than going home. However, her string of misfortune continued, complicating even something as simple as an elevator ride.

"Wondergirl," Asuka acknowledged the blue haired EVA pilot as she stepped into the elevator car with her.

Rei responded with a fractional nod. The elevator doors shut and it began to move. For a long, long moment, the regular clicking of the floor counter was the only sound within the car.

Then, the First Child spoke. "If you don't open your heart to her, EVA will not move."

Asuka started, more because of Rei referring to EVA as "her" than because of the sudden, unexpected conversation.

"Wh-What?"

"EVA has her own mind," Rei said, not turning to look at Asuka. "Surely, you must be aware of this."

"What are you talking about?" Asuka demanded.

"EVA is not just a doll. She possesses a mind and soul of her own," Rei stated. "I think…she might have been human once."

Asuka's eyes widened, and she felt her heartbeat speeding up. _No. No, it's impossible. EVA can't be Mama._

The elevator suddenly reached its destination and the doors slid open with a ping. Asuka took the opportunity to retreat from the First Child, all but sprinting down the halls, not consciously thinking about where she was going.

She hated herself when she realized that she was heading toward the EVA cage where her Unit Two was berthed. Yet she was unable to stop her feet from taking her to the crimson titan, and she soon found herself standing face to face with it.

"Well," she began awkwardly, "I see that you're all back together again after losing so badly against the last Angel."

The EVA, of course, didn't reply. Asuka snorted slightly, its unwavering silence putting her somewhat at ease. It seemed ludicrous now, to have believed that there was really a possibility that it could have a mind and soul of its own like a human, and that that soul could have belonged to her mother.

"What does a doll like you need a mind for?" she scoffed. "Nothing, that's what. So you just let me do all the thinking and don't resist my commands, got it?"

EVA remained silent, and Asuka shook her head, rolling her eyes. "What am I doing?" she groaned. "This is stupid."

No sooner had Asuka made this declaration then did klaxons start blaring, causing the Second Child to jump. "Angel?"

* * *

_Damn, they're back,_ Maya thought as she stood in the command center and waited for reports about the Angel to start coming in. _I was starting to hope the Fourteenth was the last. I guess I should just be grateful there was such a large gap between attacks._

"Visual confirmation of the Angel," Aoba announced. "This is at maximum zoom."

The image of the Fifteenth Angel appeared on the main view screen. It looked like a pair of great, glowing wings and was set against the backdrop of outer space. Had Maya not known that it was intent on destroying humanity, she might have thought it was pretty.

"It's maintaining a constant distance from us," Makoto said.

"That probably means it's waiting for a chance to come down," Misao said, standing next to Maya as usual.

"Or it could be capable of attacking from where it is. It wouldn't be the first Angel we've encountered to use long range strikes," Maya countered, remembering their disastrous first attempt at engaging the Fifth Angel.

"We can't get at it easily," Makoto said.

Misao nodded. "It's out of our weapons' range. We need it to come closer."

_Which will probably require us to send out the EVA's as bait,_ Maya thought, holding back a grimace.

"How's Rei?" the Ops Director asked.

"She and Unit Zero are ready and in good condition," Sakura answered.

Maya nodded. "All right. Launch EVA Unit Zero! Rei, prepare for extreme long distance firing. Asuka, hold position. Prepare to deploy to backup Unit Zero."

"What?!" came the indignant screech of the Second Child. "Me? Backup her?! No way! EVA Unit Two, move out!"

"The second catapult is firing," Aoba reported. "Unit Two is heading for the surface."

"Asuka!" Akagi barked.

Maya sighed. "Let her go if she wishes, and send her the type twenty positron rifle. There's no stopping her, anyway," she said, recalling the incident at Mount Asuma, when the Second Child had plunged deeper and deeper into danger, regardless of what Maya had said.

She wondered when exactly this job had filled her to the top with bitter, unwanted memories.

"If Asuka fails here, she'll be dismissed, won't she?" Ritsuko asked.

"What choice will I have but to dismiss her?" Maya responded.

"Hey, uh, aren't we sending out Unit One?" Makoto asked, awkwardly getting into the conversation.

Maya shook her head. "No, it's been placed in cryo-stasis by order of Commander Ikari. Only he has the authority to unfreeze it."

Misao glanced at one of the smaller monitors, which showed the inside of Unit One's plug. Shinji sat there, drumming his fingers anxiously on one of the control yokes. Misao, who knew only too well what it felt like to have to sit on the sidelines while your comrades and friends went into battle without you, sympathized with her boyfriend. Yet at the same time, she had to admit it was a weight off her shoulders, knowing that for once, Shinji wouldn't be out in the line of fire.

_Don't screw this up, Asuka,_ she thought.

* * *

"Don't screw this up, Asuka," the Second Child muttered to herself as Unit Two arrived on the surface, where rain was falling in a steady downpour. "This is your last chance. Make it count."

A second elevator opened up by Unit Two's foot, and a massive rife appeared next to her, emerging from its underground storage space. The crimson titan grabbed the type twenty and brought the weapon up as its pilot summonsed her targeting visor.

"Come on, you damn Angel," Asuka grumbled. "Hurry up and get here so I can kill you."

Suddenly, her targeting visor erupted in a burst of radiance that dazzled her eyes. A great beam of light cut through the clouds, shining down upon Unit Two.

And the Second Child screamed.

* * *

"What's happening?!" Maya demanded as red alert warnings appeared on every available screen and alarms began blaring.

"Some kind of energy weapon?" Misao asked.

"Negative! No thermal emissions detected!" Aoba reported.

"The psychograph is going crazy!" Sakura added. "Mental contamination is imminent!"

"The pilot's life signs are becoming erratic!" Makoto exclaimed.

"My god," Ritsuko breathed. "A psychic attack from an Angel. Is it possible that they can understand the minds of humans?"

"Gott damn it!" the Second Child screamed, pulling the trigger on her weapon without bothering with the niceties of exact targeting.

The spheres of positrons shot into the air and then out of the atmosphere, soaring into outer space, tiny pinpricks of light in the infinite darkness. However, they missed their target by a wide margin.

"Positrons diminished." Aoba announced grimly.

If the Second Child heard this, she wasn't dissuaded from further attempts at killing the Angel. Cursing up a storm in three different languages, she continued pulling the trigger wildly, sending several shots not up into space but toward the ground, causing a series of explosions to rip through Tokyo-3.

Then the type twenty clicked empty.

"Asuka's rifle is out of ammunition!" Aoba reported unnecessarily.

"What's Asuka's status?" Maya asked.

"The mental contamination has reached the borderline!" Sakura said. "Damage is imminent!"

* * *

"No!" the Second Child screamed, her head in her hands as she felt a barrier she had never had any sense of before beginning to crack under the assault of the Angel. "No! Stay out of my mind!"

Even as Unit Two continued to writhe in an expression of its pilot's anguish and suffering, things began to seep through the cracks in the wall that separated Asuka's mind from those of others. Horrible things, but a mere taste of what was to come, should that all important wall between herself and the rest of the world collapse entirely. Brief but intense flickers of memories and pure emotion, all of which she associated with that terrible day.

_Strangled!_

"No!"

_Pain!_

"Don't look into my mind!"

_Death!_

"Nooooo!"

_Suicide! Shame! Rage!_

"Asuka! Retreat!" she heard Maya bark, the Ops Director sounding as though she were shouting across a great distance.

Part of Asuka wanted to obey that order, wanted to obey it more than she'd ever wanted anything. But she held her ground, knowing that if she left the field of battle with her foe not yet slain, she would be replaced soon afterwards.

And replacement would be worse than anything this Angel could ever do to her, far worse. The Angel could torture her, kill her, but losing EVA would mean losing the only thing she had ever known. The only thing that made her worth anything as a human being.

It would mean losing her only reason to _be_.

"Asuka! That's an order!" Maya barked. "Retreat!"

"No!" Asuka yelled again. "No! I won't retreat! I'd rather _die!_"

* * *

Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, the unmolested Unit Zero was nearly ready for its own assault with the massive positron rifle that the JSSDF had 'generously' given to NERV after the failure of Jet Alone had removed any use they might have had for it.

The First Child had finally managed to acquire a solid lock on the target, and the process of preparing the rifle for a shot at maximum power was rapidly nearing completion.

Gritting her teeth, Rei pressed the trigger on her right control yoke hard, and Unit Zero moved in synch with her. A great blast of light erupted forth from the barrel of the absurdly large rifle, shooting straight upwards towards it target. Unlike Asuka's with attacks, Rei's shot was true, and the blast of antimatter went soaring straight toward the Angel.

Only to impact harmlessly upon its AT field.

* * *

"No effect!" Aoba exclaimed. "There's not enough energy to break through the Angel's AT field at this distance!"

"But the output was at maximum!" Makoto said. "We can't put any more power into another shot!"

Over the radio, Asuka's screams were starting to grow weaker.

Maya ran her hands through her short hair, not caring about showing how stressed out she was to everyone in command center. She was completely at a loss, and, judging from Misao's silence, so was her predecessor.

_What am I going to do?_ She wondered.

"Cancel the freeze on Unit One and deploy it to the battlefield immediately," Gendo commanded, his cold voice cutting through the chaos of the command center with ease. "Perhaps a simultaneous assault by it and Unit Zero can pierce the Angel's AT field."

"Roger!" the trio of bridge technicians called as they got to work.

"No…" Misao whispered, too softly for anyone but her to hear.

Up on the command center's highest tier, Fuyutski leaned down by Gendo's ear and whispered, "Ikari, what are you doing? Unit One has an S2 organ now. The risk of contact with an Angel—"

"Is one that we must accept if we are to defeat this enemy," Gendo cut him off. "I am merely accepting reality, Sensei."

Fuyutski's eyes narrowed. _Are you? Or are you _still_ looking to get revenge on your son for threatening to destroy Yui?_

"Send Unit One the type nineteen positron rifle the moment it reaches the surface," Maya said, then, in a softer voice, added, "Good luck, Shinji."

* * *

_Finally,_ was Shinji's only thought as he heard his father order Unit One into combat.

He and Asuka had clashed more than once, most notably when Misao had been trapped inside EVA and he had threatened to strike her. However, Shinji _had_ come to care about his redheaded fellow pilot, even if he had perhaps done so reluctantly. Maybe it had been living together that had caused it, or maybe it was fighting and risking their lives together, but the thought of Asuka having to endure this Angel's attack a moment longer than necessary and possibly perishing from it made him feel ill.

Then again, he probably would have felt compelled to help _anyone_ who was so obviously suffering.

The Third Child felt warmth wash over him as Unit One was thawed, and then the EVA was moved onto one of the electromagnetic catapults.

"Launch Unit One!" he heard Maya shout, and the EVA rocketed upwards.

Seconds later, the purple behemoth had arrived on the surface and was grasping a rifle that was slightly less modern than the one that Unit Two still clung to. With a grunt, he slung it onto his EVA's shoulder and raised the weapon, then summonsed his targeting visor.

"You need to get a target lock as soon as possible," Maya ordered. "Then you and Rei will have to fire at the exact same moment."

"Got it," Shinji said.

The task proved to be much easier said than done, however. The Angel was so far away from him that he felt he was trying to center the targeting reticule on a pinprick. It was literally no more than a single pixel on his visor's display

"Come on," he grumbled, actively forcing himself not to remember the battle against the Fifth Angel, "come on…"

Suddenly, the Angel's beam moved faster than anyone had believed possible, sweeping across the ground like the universe's most malevolent spotlight. It left Unit Two, and moved straight to Unit One before the Third Child could react.

Shinji screamed as he too became acquainted with the sensation of his mental barriers coming under assault. Unit One staggered backwards, trying to escape the horrible light, but in his panic, Shinji caused the giant to stumble and fall to the ground.

"No!" he shouted, holding his hands up in front of his face in an utterly useless warding gesture. "No!"

Perhaps it was simply because of his much higher sync ratio, or maybe Shinji had less mental armor than Asuka for some reason, but whatever the cause, the Third Child's barriers buckled almost immediately, allowing the Angel full entry into his brain. And suddenly he wasn't in the entry plug of Unit One anymore. Suddenly he was—

* * *

—crying. He was crying, even though he was trying to make himself stop, because Father had told him that boys weren't supposed to cry. Maybe if he could stop himself from crying, Father would change his mind about leaving.

But that didn't happen. Shinji could only watch as Father boarded the train, which took off down the rails, leaving him standing there on the platform of the station. Alone.

_Alone._

"Father, don't you want me?" Shinji whispered, putting his face in his hands as he stood there, drowning in inconceivable misery. "I'm your son."

_Wait a minute! That man is a monster!_ Shinji thought, memories of how his life had gone after this event starting to trickle into his mind. _If he hadn't abandoned me, I might have become just like him!_

The flow of his tears ebbed, then stopped all together. Shinji's face drew down into a scowl, and he turned to look in the direction that the train had sped off toward. "I don't care if you don't want anything to do with me, Father!" he spat. "Because I don't want anything to do with you, either!"

A thunderous, inhuman roar suddenly rumbled the heavens, and Shinji half expected to feel the ground start quaking.

_Oh…damn,_ Shinji thought, realizing that he had royally pissed off the Angel by beating its little mind game. The Third Child swallowed, and—

* * *

—he blinked as all of his displays inside the entry plug suddenly went dead, his connection with Unit One dying as he was plunged into darkness.

"What the hell?" he breathed, unable to fathom why his father would sever his nerve links to his EVA in the middle of a battle.

Even if he was disobeying the man's orders to destroy the possessed Unit Three without saving the pilot first.

Red light suddenly filled the plug, and a single screen lit up, the words, "Operation Dummy Plug System: Rei" appearing in yellow letters on it.

Shinji's eyes widened. The feeling of having ice inside his body, which had left him in the heat of battle, returned with a vengeance. Only this time, rather than his stomach, the ice gripped his heart.

"The autopilot system," Shinji whispered. "_Damn_ you, Father."

Then he frowned, overwhelmed by a feeling of déjà vu, but that couldn't be right. It was impossible that this had happened before.

Wasn't it?

The walls of Shinji's entry plug abruptly became "transparent" again, and he watched in horror as Unit One began to move without his command. The Angel had once more wrapped its hands around Unit One's neck while the purple giant had been deactivated, but the Dummy Plug's primitive mind didn't seem to care. The purple EVA's eyes blazed red and it pulled itself forward, despite the Angel's attempts to keep it at arm's length. Unit One wrapped its hands around the Angel's neck and the two titanic foes began to compete to see which could choke the life out of the other first.

_Oh god, what am I going to do?_ Shinji thought frantically. _If I can't get him to give me back control of EVA, the Dummy System will kill Misao._

Now the only question was how could he get his Father to restore control to him? Even if he pretended to be willing to destroy the Angel without rescuing Misao first, his Father would never believe him. And even if he _did_ fall for it, his Father could easily reactivate the Dummy System the moment Shinji went back on his word.

There was nothing he could do. Gendo Ikari held all the tiles, all the winds and dragons, and Shinji had no choice but to watch as he failed at protecting Misao from Evangelion, the only task he'd ever put his heart and soul into. Worse, he had to witness Unit One, _his_ EVA destroying her. It was like his father was using Shinji's hands to commit murder…

_Stay calm!_ _Remember what Misao told you right after you got off the _Rainbow, Shinji commanded himself. _Think of all the resources you have at your disposal to deal with the problem. But what do I have in here with my nerve links to EVA cut? Nothing!_

He was suddenly pulled from his thoughts by a sickening wet cracking sound. With a gasp he looked up and saw Unit Three's head lolling backwards in a way that was not right. Unit One had snapped its enemy's neck.

"No," he breathed, knowing that if Misao had still been linked to Unit Three, then _his_ EVA had just broken her neck as well. "No!"

With a roar, Unit One continued to attack its now helpless foe, headless of the fact that it was no longer a threat, not caring at all that there might still be a living human trapped inside. The purple berserker tackled the ebony giant to the ground and tore off parts of the armor, ripping out great chunks of bloody flesh.

"Father! Please, stop this thing!" Shinji begged.

Unit One ripped Unit Three's head from its body and smashed it into a pulp, sending a wave of blood across the ground in all directions.

"The Angel's dead! For the love of God, stop this thing! Father!"

The purple EVA ripped Unit Three's limbs from their sockets, as its complete and utter destruction began to more and more closely resemble…

_What? Resemble what?_ Shinji wondered, struck by a second wave of déjà vu.

Before he could probe his memory further, Unit One extracted the most essential part of the possessed EVA from its gory remains: the entry plug.

"No!" Shinji screamed. "Father, no! Please no! I'll do _anything!_ Just turn this thing off! There's no need for this!"

Gendo Ikari answered his son's words with silence, and the entry plug of Unit Three was crumpled in Unit One's massive fist, doubtlessly crushing the pilot inside.

"_No!_" Shinji screamed. "_No!_"

* * *

"Shinji," Misao whispered as she stood in the command center, listening helplessly to her beloved's cries of agony.

Up on the top tier, the Vice Commander leaned over to speak softly to Gendo. "Well, a lot of good that did," he whispered in a harsh tone, almost a hiss. "What are you going to do now, Ikari?"

"There is only one thing left to do, Sensei," Gendo replied. "Rei! Go to Terminal Dogma and retrieve the Lance of Longinus."

Fuyutski's eyes widened. "You can't use the Lance without the council's permission," he said. "It's too early."

"There is no other way to destroy an Angel who remains beyond the reach of our AT fields," Gendo said. "A reason exists to use the Lance, so I am doing so."

"A reason," Fuyutski grumbled, rolling his eyes. "More like an excuse."

A few minutes later, Rei made it back to the surface of Tokyo-3, the red weapon that she had pulled from Lilith's chest clutched in Unit Zero's hands.

"The MAGI is calculating the exact trajectory necessary for the attack," Akagi informed her. "Commencing countdown to the assault. Ten...nine…eight…seven…six…five…four…three…two…one."

With a grunt of effort, Rei flung the massive weapon with all of her EVA's considerable might. The spear of extraterrestrial metal soared upwards, releasing a loud roaring sound as it pierced the clouds, dispelling the storm that had lingered over Tokyo-3 all day in mere seconds. Higher and higher the Lance went, until it slammed into the Angel's AT field. The barrier of light held for a few seconds, stretching out somewhat before it collapsed under the Lance's unique power, and the Angel was left defenseless before it.

"The target has been annihilated," Rei heard Aoba speak.

The First Child released a small sigh of relief. Then she turned her head to regard Unit One, which lay prone and unmoving on the ground.

"Pilot Ikari…" she whispered.

* * *

Several hours of examinations for Angelic contamination followed the battle for the Second and Third Children, both of whom looked pale and withdrawn after their ordeal. In the end, NERV Medical pronounced them both fine, physically at least. As for their mental and emotional health, well, NERV had never really been overly concerned about that.

It was already dark out by the time Misao was allowed to bring her flat mates home, cursing Commander Ikari and her own inability to do anything to help them in battle. When they finally arrived at the apartment and she mentioned dinner, both Shinji and Asuka said they weren't hungry. Asuka had then immediately rushed off to her room, cloistering herself away for the rest of the night.

Shinji, however, almost seemed afraid to let Misao out of his sight and remained by her as she made herself some instant ramen, actually following the directions on the package for once. At her insistence, he ate a little with her.

After their pathetic dinner, the two went to Misao's bedroom and lay down together, and it was in the quiet darkness of this room where the two had shared both passion and intimate facts and secrets about one another that she was at last able to pose the question she knew she had to ask, even though she dreaded the answer.

"What exactly did the Angel do to you?" she asked softly.

He inhaled sharply and was silent for a long moment, so long that she feared he wouldn't reply. Then he sighed and began to tell her what the Angel had shown him.

"…it was so real," he finished. "Even now, the memory of it is just as real as the memory of what actually happened. More real, in fact. It's like I can close my eyes and see Unit One snapping Unit Three's neck all over again, knowing you're still inside it."

"But that didn't happen," Misao said firmly. "It was just an illusion that the Angel showed you."

"But it could have," Shinji spoke, his voice sounding hollow. "If I hadn't realized I could use the self-destruct to get back control, it could have happened. Or if father hadn't caved, I might have pulled the switch and killed you myself."

"That didn't happen!" Misao insisted. "Things that might have been don't count, Shin-chan! I'm here, I'm alive, and I love you! Please, don't torture yourself over this!"

He didn't respond, and Misao blew an exasperated breath out between her teeth. Then, an idea came to her and she smiled in the dark. She took her boyfriend's wrist and guided his hand to her thigh. She had worn only a long nightshirt to bed, so her legs were bare.

"Misao-chan?"

"I didn't die in the battle against the Thirteenth Angel, Shin-chan," she whispered. "Let me show you that I'm still here with you."

He pulled his hand back. "I don't think that's such a good idea."

"We won't if you really don't want to, but I really _do_ think it's a good idea," she said gently. "You're hurting because the Angel showed you a vision of me dying. I want to show you that I'm very much still alive, and I can't think of a better way of doing that than this."

Shinji didn't say anything at first. What she was saying did make a certain amount of sense, but he didn't think he'd ever felt _less_ like having sex than he did at that moment.

He was suddenly aware of her taking his hand again and placing it back on her leg. Her skin was soft, warm, and as smooth as silk. He was somewhat amazed to feel a stirring of desire in himself so soon after his encounter with the Fifteenth Angel, but there it was. Even the gloom that had been wrapped around him like a stifling blanket since the battle couldn't mute the effect she had on him.

He decided not to waste time feeling incredulous and softly kissed his girlfriend.

That night, Shinji Ikari slept soundly in the arms of his beloved. Mere feet away, however, Asuka Langley Soryu tossed and turned restlessly until the break of dawn.

* * *

Author's Notes: Well, the Fifteenth Angel has come and gone. Damn, but I hate writing the mind rape chapter.

Anyway, Asuka's falling apart on schedule, and Shinji gets a dose of the Angel's mind invasion too because Gendo was feeling extra bastardly. Of course, unlike Asuka, Shinji has someone to help him through this.

Wandering Soul of 1014, I confess that when I first had Rits crush the chip, all I really intended was to make the thing go away. Now, though, I think something may come from it as she regrets her decision. As for Rei, well, I really can't reveal her fate, but I will say that I've thought long and hard as to what should happen to her next chapter. On the issue of her Shinji, well, I don't see any reason why she wouldn't like him like she did in canon, but I don't think anything will really come of it. Rei didn't make a move on him in canon, where he was single, and Shinji certainly isn't going to be making a move on her. And personally I've never really liked it when Shinji ends up with a harem outside of humor fics and omakes.

As always, thanks to my readers and reviewers. Now, enough with all this depressing stuff. Let's have some fun.

* * *

Omake

Inspiration

"Four times. I don't believe it," Ritsuko muttered as she walked through the halls of NERV, almost zombie-like. "Four times. I don't believe it."

This had become her mantra ever since she'd made the mistake of asking Misao about Shinji's performance. She just couldn't get over the fact that her friend had netted Mr. All Night Long while she was stuck with Gendo the Minuteman, nor the fact that the latter had somehow sired the former.

_I guess talent like that must skip a generation or something,_ Ritsuko thought as she arrived at her office and practically collapsed in her chair.

It suddenly occurred to the scientist that the sexual prowess of the average male didn't peak until he was eighteen, meaning that Shinji wasn't even as good as he was going to get. The faux blonde slammed her head onto her desk.

And in so doing got an extremely close look at the papers scattered atop it.

One of which contained data from the project to discover how Misao had been physically regressed to fourteen years of age. It was a project Gendo had ordered her to look busy at without producing any actual results, so nothing promising was on the horizon.

But as she stared at the data, something in her mind clicked and her eyes widened.

_Could it really be that simple?_ She wondered, sitting bolt upright and booting up her PC so she could check her conclusion.

An hour later, Dr. Akagi was seen running toward the EVA cages, cackling madly.

* * *

_The next day…_

"I love you more."

"No, I love you more."

Shinji and Misao grinned stupidly at each other as they walked home together, enjoying the silly lovers' argument that was certain to any observers. Fortunately, Asuka had gone somewhere with Hikari and wasn't around.

The two eventually reached the apartment and opened the door.

"Hello there, you two."

Jumping, they both quickly turned to look at the couch, where a blonde girl about their age was sitting with her legs crossed, wearing a school uniform. She smirked at their shocked expressions.

"R-Ritsuko?" Misao stammered, "Is that you?"

"In the flesh," Ritsuko grinned.

"Why did you…? Why are you…?" Misao stammered.

Ritsuko's grin turned sly. "Well, you gave such glowing reviews of Shinji that I felt the need to join your age bracket and see what all the fuss is about."

"What?!" Misao barked. "No! No way! He's my man! Hands off!"

"Why so greedy, Misao?" Ritsuko drawled. "Can't we share him?"

"No!" Misao snapped. "I am _so_ not interested in that sort of thing!"

"That's not what you said back in college," Ritsuko noted dryly.

Misao blushed. "I was drunk that night…and it was only once."

"Alcohol lowers inhibitions, it doesn't instill completely new desires in people," Ritsuko countered.

While the two argued back and forth, Shinji just stood there silently and observed. He looked as embarrassed as hell, but the wheels in his head were spinning in overdrive.

_Hmm, this is a most unexpected opportunity, but it could create problems. It might be harder to get Rei to join the group if Ritsuko's in it. Asuka's not too keen on Akagi, either,_ he thought, trying to quickly rearrange his scenario to accommodate this development. _Eh, to hell with it. I'll figure out how to put it all together later._

"Ladies, please stop. There's no reason to fight like this. I'm sure we can figure out some way to…" and here he had difficulty keeping the perverted grin off his face, "work things out."


	18. Chapter 18

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

Chapter Eighteen: **Misplaced Envy/And Then There Were Two**

"This probably isn't going to work," Shinji said as he and Misao approached the front door of the Horaki residence. "I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't even get to speak to her."

"I know," Misao said, "but we have to try."

"True," Shinji agreed as Misao reached out and rapped smartly on the front door, ignoring the doorbell entirely.

The two stood on the porch and waited for almost five minutes, the silence broken only by Misao occasionally knocking on the door again, more loudly each time. They both soon lost hope of anyone answering, but they were also reluctant to leave and admit defeat.

Just as Shinji was about to say they might as well head home, the door was quickly pulled open to reveal the form of the Second Child.

_Damn, she looks terrible,_ was Shinji's first thought, then he frowned slightly, wondering why exactly he reached that conclusion. Asuka's appearance was mostly unchanged from what he remembered, but…

Then it hit him. Asuka had, since he'd known her, had always seemed to be brimming with a sort of (often volatile) energy. It was just an aura she had about her, and it somehow made it less than surprising when her legendary temper flared up. You more or less expected someone that lively and spirited not to hold herself back when something irritated her, which might not have been a problem if not for the sheer _number_ of things that irritated her.

Now, however, that aspect of her was conspicuously absent, though the anger obviously remained. It was unsettling.

"What are you two doing here?" Asuka demanded when neither Shinji nor Misao immediately spoke.

"We're here to take you home, Asuka," Misao replied.

The redhead's eyes narrowed slightly. "Are you going to force me?"

"Of course not!" Misao exclaimed, sounding rather exasperated already. "But you can't keep living like this! Holing yourself up in Hikari's place all day doing god knows what, not going to school—this can't go on! You can't just run away from everything like this! Never mind how you're inconveniencing the Horaki's!"

"Please, Asuka, come back home with us," Shinji added.

"Why should I?" Asuka asked sourly.

"I just told you why!" Misao exclaimed. "Please, Asuka, don't do this to yourself! Just because you lost at EVA—"

Asuka's blue eyes flashed, and Misao cut herself off, wincing slightly as she realized her blunder. The Second Child's life had been built around EVA, NERV had ensured it. To imply that Asuka's failure at EVA was a minor thing she should just shrug off was not something that would help Misao in her objective of getting the Second Child home, she knew.

"Hmph, I'm sure you're happier without me around," Asuka grumbled.

"That's not—" Shinji began.

"Oh, of course it is!" Asuka snapped. "I'm not an idiot, Third! I know the both of you have been wishing that I wasn't around!"

This outburst left both Shinji and Misao at a loss for words, largely because it was the truth. Really, what new couple wouldn't want to be rid of someone who made gagging noises whenever she caught them so much as holding hands? And that wasn't even mentioning the angry tirades they had to put up with if they dared to make the slightest sound she could hear while they were getting intimate.

However, the apartment had seemed oppressively quiet and grim ever since Asuka had left in the wake of the Fifteenth Angel's attack, and thus Shinji and Misao hadn't been able to enjoy the resulting privacy.

Neither of them having any idea how to diplomatically convey this, they both hesitated, which was all the confirmation of what she'd already known that Asuka needed. The Second Child wordlessly slammed the door shut.

"Asuka!" Misao barked, banging on the door again. "Come out!"

"Go away!" Asuka shouted back from inside.

Misao grabbed the knob and tried to turn it, but Asuka had been too quick for her and had already locked the door. She continued to pound on the door and shout for Asuka for several minutes.

Shinji put a hand on her shoulder and stopped her when it looked like the Fourth Child was about to try and break the offending door down.

"She's not coming back with us," he said with a sigh.

Reluctantly, Misao agreed with him and curbed her anger. The pair left, heading for home.

"I should have known this wouldn't work," Misao sighed after a few minutes of depressed silence between them.

"But we had to try," Shinji countered.

"Yeah, we did," Misao agreed. "But the only person that Asuka would probably allow to help her right now is Kaji, and he's dead. Something Asuka does _not_ need to know about right now."

Shinji nodded in agreement. "I think the way I bounced back after the Fifteenth Angel was the last straw for her," he muttered guiltily.

The Third Child's sync scores had fluctuated in the days following the previous Angel's attack, but they had eventually stabilized in the low nineties and then began to slowly climb. He hadn't regained the one to one sync ratio and might never do so, but he was still the top EVA pilot. Asuka, on the other hand, had been flirting with sync levels below the absolute borderline. Also, though Shinji had more than once woken from nightmares desperately clutching to his lover, he clearly wasn't on the verge of a total mental breakdown like Asuka was.

"Don't feel bad about not holding yourself back, Shin-chan," Misao admonished. "That's not the answer, and I don't think it would have made much difference if you had."

Shinji nodded, though his tendency to blame himself for things was still too deeply engrained for him to be able to banish the feelings of guilt entirely.

They lapsed into silence again, and remained quiet until they had boarded a bus to take them back to their part of the city.

"Did you know," Misao said slowly once they'd found seats, "that I used to envy Asuka?"

"What? Why?" Shinji asked, incredulous.

"She…fit in," Misao said, not quite sure how to put it into words. "She wasn't a normal teenage girl, but she could sure fake it well. Really well. At first, I had no idea how to interact with other teenagers besides you and your friends, then Asuka came to Japan and became the queen of Tokyo-3 Junior High overnight."

"So, you…were jealous of Asuka's popularity at school?" Shinji asked.

Misao's lips formed a smirk despite herself. "Yeah, I guess when it comes down to it, I was. A pretty teenage thing to do for someone who's afraid she doesn't know how to be a teenager, huh?"

"Yeah," Shinji agreed.

Neither of them pointed out that no one would envy Asuka now, they were both only too well aware of that.

* * *

"Sempai, please tell me what's been bothering you," Maya urged.

Ritsuko had to bite down on the first response which came to her mind, which was to demand to know why the Operations Director continued to spend nearly all her breaks in the top scientist's office, despite the fact that Maya had long since learned how to deal with her subordinates and no longer needed to hide from them. Nothing good could come from venting on her former protégé, Ritsuko knew. Especially considering that Maya was effectively her only friend these days, given how she and Misato had drifted apart.

"My cat died," Ritsuko answered instead.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," Maya said sympathetically, "when did it pass away?"

"Only recently," Ritsuko replied, not realizing the tactical error she was making. "My grandmother was keeping it for me, because I don't have the time to care for it with my job here. She called earlier today to tell me."

"I see," Maya said, "but…you haven't really been yourself for weeks, sempai. Are you sure that's the only thing that's bothering you?"

Ritsuko hesitated, suddenly very tempted to just spill the entire story to the petite brunette, to share the weight that was pressing down upon her soul and slowly crushing it.

But, no, she couldn't do that. She didn't want to infect Maya with her misery, and quite frankly, Ritsuko was ashamed of her part in the Instrumentality Project. She wasn't an idiot; she knew that Maya looked up to her, and she had no desire to shatter the younger woman's illusions by telling Maya that her mentor had held the power to save the world in the palm of her hand…and had crushed it beneath her heel. She'd like it if there was still at least one person who thought well of her, at the end.

But still she was tempted to share her troubles. Indeed, Ritsuko could remember the last time she'd felt so torn.

_Well, maybe I can't tell her _everything, _but…_

"Maya, have you ever done anything really…cowardly?" Ritsuko asked, choosing her words very carefully. "So cowardly that you were disgusted with yourself afterwards?"

"Well, yes, I suppose," Maya replied slowly, wondering what Ritsuko could be referring to but knowing better than to ask for specifics. "I've certainly never considered myself to be some fearless lioness." She added with a small, rueful smile.

"I did something like that recently," Ritsuko confessed, looking down at her hands. "Something really cowardly and really bad. I'm not sure what to do now."

For several moments, Maya said nothing in response, not at all sure how _to_ respond. It was jarring to see her ever in-control sempai looking so lost, and it was frustrating to know so little about what exactly was bothering her so much. Without anything resembling details, she couldn't exactly offer any kind of specific advice, nor could she even attempt to offer any kind of absolution. However, she obviously had to say _something_.

"Well, sempai," Maya finally spoke, "I think someone in your position really only has two choices. You can either accept the consequences of what you did and move on, or you can do whatever it takes to try and fix it."

Ritsuko smiled slightly but kept her gaze fixed on her hands, not quite able to bring herself to look up into her former assistant's innocent brown eyes. It all sounded so deceptively simple when she put it like that.

_Then again, maybe it really is that simple,_ Ritsuko thought. _Maybe I'm the one who's making it complicated._

"Thanks, Maya," she said softly.

"You're welcome, sempai," Maya said warmly. "I hope that you can resolve what's bothering you."

"Me too," Ritsuko said softly.

Maya hesitated for a moment, then, mustering her courage, added, "I'll always be around if you're ever in need of a sympathetic ear, sempai."

Now Ritsuko finally did manage to look up at her friend. "That means a lot to me."

Maya nodded. "Well, I have to get back to work. Good luck, sempai."

"Thank you," Ritsuko said quietly as Maya left.

* * *

While Shinji and Misao tried not to dwell upon Asuka's absences, for the sake of their own sanity if nothing else, it was sometimes impossible to avoid it.

During lunch was one of those times. Asuka hadn't sat at the pilots' table for very long, but the lack of the fire haired firebrand was very conspicuous all the same. As a result, Shinji and Misao silently picked at their food for most of the lunch period.

Ironically, Rei was the one who finally couldn't stand the quiet any longer and spoke.

"Excuse me?" she said rather awkwardly, far from experienced when it came to starting conversations.

"Yes?" Misao asked.

"I was wondering if we might go to the sushi restaurant we ate at after our victory over the Tenth Angel," Rei said. "Perhaps tonight."

Shinji and Misao both gave the First Child an incredulous look in return. They knew Rei wasn't exactly fond of Asuka, but they never would have thought she could feel the urge to _celebrate_ a victory that came at the cost of utterly breaking the Second Child's spirit.

Rei seemed to realize that she had blundered, and a faint pink blush appeared on her pale cheeks. "We were…happy when we were there," she explained, rather sheepishly. "I would like to experience that again."

Shinji and Misao's eyes immediately softened as they realized that Rei wasn't looking to celebrate but just trying to find some way to dispel the gloom that had descended like a dark cloud ever since the battle against the Fifteenth Angel.

"We should do something together," Shinji said, "but I don't think that would exactly be appropriate."

"Besides, I think Asuka destroyed that place when she started shooting wildly with the positron rifle," Misao added.

"Oh, I see," Rei said, disappointed.

* * *

Though the relationship between Gendo and SEELE had never exactly been friendly, compared to now, the dynamics between them had once been nothing short of cordial.

"You lost the Lance of Longinus, Ikari," SEELE-08 spoke, barely restrained rage all too easy to hear in his words. "It's on its way to the Moon as we speak."

Seated at the center of the ring of monoliths, Gendo was the picture of calm as he rested his face on his interwoven hands. "There was no choice left to me at that point," he said. "The Angel had to be destroyed, and it had already neutralized both Units Two and One."

"Sending Unit One into combat is another overly bold move you should not have undertaken," SEELE-02 growled. "Now that it possesses an S2 organ, the danger inherent in sending it into combat—"

"Must sometimes be accepted if the scenario is to come to fruition," Gendo interrupted. "The destruction of the Angels is more essential than anything else to our plans."

"Your actions were inexcusable," SEELE-03 grumbled, clearly not ready to be placated.

"I opted to take the risk of deploying Unit One into combat in an attempt to retain the Lance of Longinus," Gendo said, "because I knew this council would not want to lose it. When that gambit failed, I had no choice but to use the Lance."

"Your excuses were once more persuasive than that, Ikari," SEELE-05 scoffed.

The ringing of a phone cut through the tense silence of the virtual meeting room before Gendo could make a reply. The Commander quickly answered it. "Fuyutski? I'm in a conference," he then paused for a moment as his immediate subordinate spoke. "I see."

Gendo hung up and turned his attention back to SEELE. "An Angel is approaching right now," he announced. "We'll have to finish this later."

"You assume you'll still have a seat here when you return," SEELE-01 said.

Gendo made no reply, and the holographic image of him vanished from the chamber.

* * *

"Launch EVA Units Zero and One as soon as they arrive at the catapults," Maya commanded. "Unit Two is to hold position inside the cage until further notice."

"No," Gendo spoke up, "sending out Unit One must remain our last resort. Unit Two will provide backup for Unit Zero, if it becomes necessary."

"But, sir, Asuka is—"

"I don't care," Gendo said. "At least it can serve as a decoy. Unit Two is to be used before Unit One. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir," Maya said, hoping things didn't go as disastrously as they had the last time Gendo had countermanded her orders.

"Unit Zero has been launch and has assumed position four kilometers from the target," Aoba reported after a couple of minutes.

"Here we go again," Maya whispered tiredly to herself as she gazed at the form of the Sixteenth Angel on the main screen.

The latest threat to mankind's continued existence was perhaps one of the strangest yet, looking like a glowing double helix that was formed into a spinning ring over the land. Maya had no idea how this Angel might attack.

"Analysis?" she asked.

"The pattern keeps shifting from blue to orange in a fixed cycle," Makoto reported. "That's making it very difficult for the MAGI to draw any conclusions about the target."

"I'm sure that shape isn't fixed, however," Akagi said.

"We have to be careful until we learn more of its capabilities," Misao said quietly to Maya.

The Operations Director nodded. "Rei, pull back to a distance of ten kilometers."

"No," the First Child replied in an almost eerily calm voice, "it's coming."

* * *

Outside, the double helixes of the Sixteenth Angel fused together and part of it split, turning it from a ring into a whip.

Then it struck with impossible speed and serpentine agility, streaking out toward Unit Zero more quickly than Rei could have ever hoped to dodge. The First Child's eyes widened as the end of the Angel plunged into Unit Zero's abdomen, causing large, vein like bulges to spread out from the point of penetration.

Somehow forcing down the fear and panic, Rei grabbed part of the Angel with Unit Zero's free hand and brought a massive rifle to bear with the other. She pulled the trigger again and again, firing off enormous shells that were larger than some modern tanks.

The weapon had no effect on the Angel, and soon the rifle clicked empty.

_No…_

Rei grimaced as she felt the Angel's alien presence invading her like a virus, and Unit Zero staggered backwards, collapsing into a green hillside, the empty rifle slipping from its hands.

The First Child was vaguely aware of a lot of panicked chattering going over the radio, but she comprehended none of it. She was far too focused on how the alien veins were spreading over her own body now.

* * *

"Unit Zero's AT field is starting to collapse!" Sakura reported. "Nearly five percent of the EVA's bioparts have been fused with the Angel!"

"Deploy Unit Two to the battle field!" Maya ordered, coming to a snap decision. "Do it now!"

"Yes, ma'am!" Aoba replied, typing in the relevant commands.

Down by the EVA cages, the second catapult launched with the familiar burst of electromagnetic energy, sending it rocketing skyward. In seconds, it had arrived inside a huge, faux building, the front door of which quickly slid open like the world's largest garage. Nearby, another fake building also opened up, revealing a pallet rifle for the crimson giant.

"Asuka, retrieve the rifle, then deploy your AT field and engage the Angel," Maya ordered.

On the main screen, Unit Two didn't budge.

"Asuka?" Misao spoke.

"Her sync ratio is below the absolute borderline!" Sakura reported. "She can't pilot Unit Two!"

"Damn," Maya breathed, soft but vehemently. "Recall Unit Two, it's just a big target out there."

* * *

"Move, damn you, move," Asuka commanded Unit Two pathetically, pulling uselessly on the control yokes even as the EVA began to descend back below the surface.

She had known that this was coming, of course, but it was still surprisingly painful to know that her sync ratio had finally fallen to the point where she could no longer make EVA move. To know that she was officially useless and had failed everyone.

"Gott _damn_ it," she breathed as she released the control yokes and finally stopped trying.

* * *

Outside, the Angel was continuing to fuse with Unit Zero, and Rei was all but writhing in agony in the cockpit as the veins worked their way up to her neck and drew near to her face.

The First Child felt the Angel's presence spreading ever further, and not just to the still untouched parts of her body. Its presence, somehow cold and alien but also strangely familiar, was extending to her mind.

"No…" she muttered weakly, some part of her dimly wondering if this was anything like what Shinji and Asuka had experienced when the Fifteenth Angel had attacked them.

Then her mind was consumed with a crazed whirl of images, and the foreign influence seemed to change, to transform and become something she was far more familiar with. She struggled to figure out what this presence was.

_Me? The me within EVA?_ She wondered. _No…there's someone else, someone other than me._

"Who are you?" she spoke. "An Angel?"

She blinked, and when her red eyes opened again, she was hovering above a seemingly endless ocean of LCL, staring at a perfect duplicate of herself, which was standing in the LCL up to her hips. The doppelganger's head was bowed.

"Are you one of the beings we call Angels?" Rei asked again.

The Rei duplicate didn't respond immediately, and when it did, it wasn't with an answer to the First Child's question. "Do you wish to become one with me?" the copy asked, voice reverberating and echoing strangely.

"No," Rei answered at once. "I am I. Not you."

"Hmm, but you shall become one with me," the duplicate said, sounding amused. "It's too late for anything else."

The veins that were spreading all over Rei's body in the real world suddenly made their appearance in this once, and the First Child grimaced slightly as they snaked over her form.

"I give you a part of mind," the Rei replica said. "I give you this emotion…"

The copy raised its head, revealing a bright smile quite unlike Rei's usual expression. In any other circumstance, this might have her look cute, rather than chilling.

"This is pain," the duplicate said. "Do you feel this pain?"

"This is not pain," Rei said.

The First Child knew pain, knew pain far more intimately than anyone ever should. Her whole life had been a series of experiments, most of them performed none too gently by Dr. Akagi. She had endured countless injuries during her career as an EVA pilot. The one that had rendered her unable to fight when the Third Angel had struck had been the worst incident, but it had been far from the only one.

So she could say with some authority that what she was experiencing wasn't pain. It was more like…like what she felt when she watched Shinji and Misao displaying affection for one another.

"This is loneliness," she said as realization dawned.

"Loneliness?" the replica Rei asked. "I don't understand. Do you hate being alone?"

"Yes," Rei said, "that is loneliness."

"That is your mind," the duplicate smirked. "Full of sadness. Just like the minds of all the lilin."

"They are not like that," Rei said, thinking of Shinji and Misao.

The doppelganger didn't seem confused as to who Rei was referring to. It either knew the First Child's mind or simply didn't care who "they" were.

"They will be," the Angel vowed.

With a start, Rei suddenly found herself back in the entry plug. She abruptly became aware of small drops of liquid that were falling onto her lap.

"Tears?" she whispered to herself. "I'm crying?"

* * *

Outside, the armor plates on Unit Zero's back suddenly burst off, and a monstrous growth formed on the cyclopean giant's back with amazing speed. It warped and shifted, soon becoming larger than the EVA itself and taking on the forms of all the Angels that NERV had slain up to that point.

That was when Shinji, watching the battle from inside Unit One's entry plug, decided that he couldn't just sit back and watch any more.

"EVA Unit One, launch!" the Third Child shouted, sending his EVA toward the surface.

_I really hope I don't regret taking a page out of Asuka's book on this,_ he thought as he grimaced under the now familiar feel of the force of the acceleration pressing down on him, unaware that command had been about to send him into combat anyway.

As his EVA neared the surface, he undid the restraints that held Unit One's feet to the sled, adding it to his list of things he fervently hoped he didn't regret.

One of the trap doors in the street opened up, and Unit One rose to the surface. And kept on rising, thanks to inertia, the purple EVA soaring into the air. With a savage yell, Shinji pulled the trigger of the pallet rifle he'd brought with him, sending a nearly solid stream of lead out at the Angel, most of the shells striking its long, glowing body dead on.

The pallet rifle had no more effect on the Angel than the more powerful gun Rei had unloaded upon it from point blank, and its ammunition was spent by the time gravity reclaimed his EVA. Shinji tossed the weapon aside as Unit One's feet slammed onto the ground, sending a shock wave through the ground.

With a thought from its pilot, Unit One's AT field came into existence with a brief shimmer in the air. The Angel responded immediately, the free end of its long body lashing out toward him.

Shinji grunted as he pulled Unit One back, just barely avoiding it.

_Damn, it's fast!_ Shinji thought as he opened the left shoulder pylon of Unit One and grabbed the progressive knife stored there.

The Angel tried to strike him again, and Shinji grabbed it with Unit One's left hand, then plunged the knife into it. He was rewarded with a great spurt of dark red blood…and a piercing scream from Rei.

He released a yelp and let go of the knife, which quickly fell out of the Angel and clattered to the ground below. With a grunt, Shinji gripped it with both hands now, ignoring the way the veins that had all but consumed Unit Zero by now were spreading over Unit One's hands and his own hands.

_What do I do?_ He wondered desperately. _Whenever I hurt the Angel, I hurt Rei!_

Suddenly, the free end of the Angel shifted and changed, taking on the shape of Rei from the waist up, but ghostly pale, even compared to the First Child. Shinji could only stand there as it reached out and caressed Unit One's face with its toxic touch.

* * *

"No," Rei whispered as she watched the Angel and Unit One.

_I cannot allow this happen,_ she thought. _I _must_ stop it, regardless of the cost._

With a supreme force of will, Rei reached out with her mind and reversed her EVA's AT field, causing what had once been a barrier to keep things separate to transform into a force to draw the Angel in.

The result was instantaneous. In seconds, the tower of Angels that had burst from Unit Zero's back was pulled back into the EVA, and the glowing rope of the Sixteenth Angel soon followed, all of it being pulled into the blue titan. The EVA's core bulged impossibly, transforming from a solid red sphere to a pink and fleshy growth.

"Rei! Eject your plug!" Maya ordered frantically over the radio a second later. "Abandon the Unit and escape!"

"No," Rei said, standing and moving toward a control that Shinji had threatened to use not too long ago. "If I leave EVA, the AT field will cease to be."

"Rei, you can't accomplish anything like this!" Maya exclaimed.

_Yes, I can,_ Rei thought. _I can save my friends._

Shinji would be unable to kill the Angel alone, Rei felt certain, and would perish if she allowed him to try. And Rei had absolutely no doubt that if Shinji died, Misao would be reduced to a shadow of her former self, not unlike Shinji had been while the Fourth Child had been trapped inside of EVA. She could not flee when she could save both her friends, the only ones who had consistently shown her kindness.

With a grunt, she pulled the switch.

And nothing happened.

"Rei," Maya spoke, "Commander Ikari decided to have the self destruct mechanisms removed from _all_ EVA Units not long after Unit One's was taken out."

"What?!" Rei exclaimed, stunned.

And in that moment of complete surprise from Rei, the Angel escaped from her tenuous hold. The tower of the Angels burst from her EVA's back once more, and the Sixteenth Angel emerged to lash out at Unit One.

* * *

"The amount of biofusion between Unit Zero and the Angel is rising exponentially!" Akagi shouted. "The Angel is also steadily merging itself with Unit One!"

Maya swallowed as she watched the battle playing out before her on the main screen. Obviously unwilling to use lethal force while the Angel was so deeply connected to Unit Zero and thus Rei, Shinji had grabbed the end of it and was trying to pull the Angel out of the blue EVA. He was not having any success so far.

"Pilot Ikari," Gendo spoke, his voice level yet still somehow commanding attention with ease, "terminate the Angel immediately."

"I can't!" Shinji replied. "Not if it means killing Rei with it."

The Commander's eyes narrowed dangerously, and rather than attempt to keep debating with his son, he turned to the bridge technicians. "Contact the JSDF. Order them to deploy an N2 mine."

"Sir?" Maya gasped.

"You can't do this!" Misao exclaimed, unable to hold her tongue.

"Yes, I can," Gendo commanded, voice icy. He turned his piercing gaze onto Hyuga Makoto. "Do it."

Reluctantly, Makoto got on the phone and relayed the order to the Japanese military.

* * *

"Come on, come on," Shinji breathed as he pulled ever harder on the Angel, trying to get it out of Unit Zero so he could then kill it.

The Angel wasn't budging by so much as a centimeter, but Shinji refused to allow himself to give up hope. He had been in similarly grim situations before and everything had turned out all right.

Then he noticed that the chatter over the radio had cut off almost immediately. He was so used to hearing it in battle that he hadn't even registered its absence. The Third Child frowned, wondering why all was suddenly so silent over the communications channels.

Then the world turned white, and Shinji felt a wave of intense heat all over his body through the neural interface with Unit One.

"No…" he breathed.

The light faded after a few seconds, allowing him to see the battlefield. The Angel was gone, but Unit Zero motionless lay on the ground, a great, bloody wound in its torso and with much of its armor melted.

* * *

"This is horrible," Shinji said some time later, as he and Misao stood in one of the rooms inside NERV Medical.

Shinji could only nod. Laying on the bed was the First Child, wrapped in more bandages than she had been wearing when Shinji had first arrived in Tokyo-3. Nearly every centimeter of Rei's body had been covered up, which was no great surprise, considering that over 90 percent of her body had suffered second or third degree burns, all of them received because of the connection she'd had to the Angel when the N2 went off and obliterated it. She was so covered by the cloth strips that, if not for her mop of blue hair which had somehow been spared, it probably would have been impossible to identity her just by looking.

"Yeah," Misao agreed, swallowing. "The doctor told me that they're keeping her sedated, because she'd be in agony if she regained consciousness now, but there's no guarantee that she'll wake up when her burns have healed enough to take her off the drugs."

They didn't say anything for a long time, just gazing at the devastated form of their friend. Besides their breathing and the steady beeping on the various medical equipment monitoring the First Child, silence reigned in the room.

Then Shinji spoke up, voice thick. "We should have found a god damn sushi place when Rei asked," he said. "She deserved to be happy one more time before…"

Misao felt tears sting her eyes. "Come on," she whispered. "Let's go. There's nothing we can do for her."

The two slowly left the Medical Ward, wondering why the people around them were falling in such quick succession recently. And both unable to keep from wondering if they—or even worse, their beloved—would be next.

* * *

"So you don't intend to activate Rei III yet?" Fuyutski asked in surprise.

He and Gendo were in the Commander's office, looking over the early after action reports of the latest battle. The grim, somber mood that filled all of NERV had not seemed to have reached Gendo, much to Fuyutski's surprise.

"No," the Commander answered. "Rei II is not dead yet."

"Yes, but she can't exactly fulfill her part in the scenario in her current state, and she's not going to recover in time," Fuyutski pointed out, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

"True, but as she is, Rei cannot be influenced by anyone with desires that run counter to our plan, including SEELE," Gendo said. "Additionally, there would be many questions we couldn't answer if she were to recover overnight."

Fuyutski just shook his head. Rei was the one person Gendo ever showed anything resembling affection for anymore, and yet he was willing to allow even her to exist in such a sorry state because it was convenient to him.

"What's the status of Unit Zero?" Gendo asked.

"Extensive damages, but it's salvageable," Fuyutski answered, holding back a tired sigh. "It probably won't be repaired on time for the arrival of the last Angel, and of course we have no pilot for it."

"No matter. Have the repairs begun as soon as those on Unit One are completed," Gendo said. "Many would find it suspicious if we just left it to rot, and we can't take our budget with us after Third Impact."

"Indeed," Fuyutski said.

* * *

Ritsuko Akagi knew that she should have gone home by now, the she shouldn't still be in NERV headquarters in the middle of the night, but there she was, because she had to _see._

She didn't know why she felt the need to be so clandestine about her observation, but when she saw that the woman at the front desk of NERV Medical was passing the hours of the graveyard shift by reading a novel and listening to an SDAT at the same time, she gladly crept past her into the long hallways.

It didn't take her long to find the room she was searching for, and in minutes she found herself looking down upon Rei's horribly injured form.

"I used to be jealous of you," Ritsuko spoke softly after a long moment of silence.

Rei, of course, did not reply, and Akagi began to pace around the small room. "I used to be jealous of you," she repeated. "I must be the world's smartest idiot. How can someone earn a doctorate with ease and then be unable to see the reality that's right in front of her?"

She turned to look at Rei again. "Maybe you're his favorite pawn, but you're a pawn just like me. You always were. I was a fool to envy you."

Rei answered with silence, and Ritsuko sighed. "I wish I could tell you that I'm going to fix everything, but I'm not at all sure about that," she said. "But for what it's worth, I'm sorry for all the crap I've put you through all these years."

Ritsuko looked down at Rei, not sure what to say next. She knew that the First Child was in no condition to accept her apology, of course, but she still felt at ends. She was, however, unable to come up with anything else to say to the First Child, her former foe, and so left her room.

* * *

"Unit Zero was badly damaged in the last engagement and its pilot received a crippling injury," SEELE-07 announced into the blackness that surrounded the twelve holographic monoliths. "At this time, NERV possesses only one EVA that can be deployed immediately: EVA Unit One."

"Between this disaster and his loss of the Lance, we have ample reason to dismiss Ikari!" SEELE-09 boomed.

"We should at least send Ikari another warning," SEELE-04 agreed. "Perhaps it's time we found someone new to interview. Someone close to Ikari and more helpful than Fuyutski was."

"Yes, but on what grounds are we to demand such a meeting?" SEELE-11 asked. "Had the First Child emerged from this battle intact, we say we wanted to speak to her because we believed she had made first level contact with an Angel. However, she won't be answering any questions any time soon."

"Fate has delivered Ikari's comeuppance for us," SEELE-01 spoke. "His favorite and most important puppet is a dying sack of cooked meat. Whatever treason he has planned may have ended already. I see no need to punish him further. However, I do believe that we should send him a messenger."

"A messenger?" asked SEELE-02, the evil grin he wore behind the safety of his nondescript avatar clearly audible in his voice.

"Indeed," SEELE-01 said. "The _final_ Messenger."

* * *

Author's Notes: Well, the Sixteenth Angel had come and been slain. We're definitely approaching the end now.

Rei's fate was something I debated for a long time as I worked on earlier chapters. At some points allowing her to die as she did in canon seemed like the only logical thing to do, and at others I was all ready to have her come out of the experience without a scratch. In the end I basically decided to split the difference. Now, while I don't want to give too much away, let me assure all of you that I didn't spare Rei II just so Gendo can off her and then activate Rei III when it's time for the culmination of his scenario.

For a while I considered depicting Rei as very deeply in love with Shinji just before she pulled the switch. Basically showing her as caring for him so much that not only will she not interfere between him and Misao because she cares about his happiness more than her own, but also sacrificing herself so he could survive and continue to be with her. I eventually scraped that idea, both because it would be so sad (especially since I have no intention of pairing Shinji with both Misao and Rei at the end), and because Misao did a lot of actual legwork involved in getting Rei to be their friend and I felt she should get her due from the First Child.

On another note, a couple of you mentioned that it seemed as though Shinji got off relatively easy against the Fifteenth Angel. While it's true that his experience wasn't as bad, I think that was just a matter of his not being as vulnerable a target as Asuka. I don't even think canon Shinji would have been, since it's implied that part of him actually likes pain and enjoys being miserable and probably dwells on the traumatic events in his past fairly frequently. Compare this to Asuka who obviously more or less suppressed the bad memories, and then add in the Misao factor and you'll see why I think Shinji would be so much more resilient.

MadAngryBeaver, I remember what I said about Eva back then, but that doesn't apply here since Shinji and Misao have connected. Personally, I always felt that the real tragedy of EoE was that it didn't have to happen that way, that if the characters had been able to help each other get through the various hardships they encountered, they might just have been able to save the world and live to tell the tale. Of course, while Shinji and Misao have each other, Asuka and Rei aren't so well off, so we'll have to see if just our two lovebirds being better off will be enough to change the end of this story…

Archdruid-Sephiroth, I actually was considering an omake of some sort on that part, but no great inspiration struck me, and I didn't want to beat the readers over the head with that reference.

As always, thanks to my readers and reviewers. Now for a little fun.

* * *

Omake

Deceptions

_I don't believe it,_ Maya thought for the thousandth time that day, watching as a maintenance man removed the nameplate reading "Dr. Ritsuko Akagi" from the door of the Project-E Chairperson's office.

_Sempai finds out that Shinji's some kind of sex god from Misao and goes off and turns herself into a fourteen-year-old girl, leaving me in the cold!_ The petite brunette fumed. _After all I've done for her!_

The worst part was that her former mentor's scheme appeared to have worked! Maya had ordered Section Two to follow Ritsuko about (a totally worthwhile use of NERV's resources, she told herself), and they reported that the bottle blonde had moved into the apartment where Shinji and Misao lived.

And the few times Maya had seen the younger Ritsuko, she'd definitely looked _disgustingly_ content.

Grumbling, Maya headed over to her own office, planning to bury herself in her paperwork in an attempt to forget how crappy her week was going so far. She practically collapsed in her chair and then picked up the first document she had to sign.

Only to realize that it was no such thing. It looked like scientific notes, and a sticky note was on the front of it, with the words, "I thought you might want this," written on it.

Curiously, Maya pulled off the sticky note and looked at the notes. Her eyes widened as she realized that they were the information needed for her to duplicate the age regression that both Misao and Ritsuko had undergone.

_Sempai…she must have put this here!_ Maya thought. _Does she want me to be able to join them? But…I'd probably have to be with Shinji, too, and I've never really wanted to do that with a man._

She sat there and pondered for a long, long moment. Finally…

"Eh, it's a risk I'm willing to take to be with sempai. Besides, there must be _something_ special about Shinji if he's able to leave two women who are really twice his age so satisfied. Who knows? Maybe he'll have me reconsidering my opinion of men," Maya said, then got out of her chair. "All right, I'm gonna do it!"

"I'm coming sempai!" Maya shouted as she took off down the halls, headed for the EVA cages.

Once she had left, Shinji emerged from the shadows in the hallway, grinning evilly. _Ritsuko-chan really should have been more careful about where she left such important notes,_ he thought.


	19. Chapter 19

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

Chapter Nineteen: **Uncertainty/Heart of Glass, Will of Iron**

Tokyo-3 was effectively dead as a city.

It was difficult to believe for many of the residents, since no matter how many times the bustling metropolis had been scarred by war in the past, it had always recovered. That was not to happen this time, however. The N2 mine used to destroy the Sixteenth Angel had simply reduced too much of the city to rubble, and the Japanese government was refusing to once again pick up the tab for reconstruction. Oh, a few structures on the outskirts had survived, and the Geofront was perfectly intact, but a general evacuation had been ordered all the same. Tokyo-3 was gradually emptying out, and only the essential NERV personnel were making no plans to leave in the immediate future.

The fight needed to be finished, after all. Though it was dead as a city, as a fortress, Tokyo-3 still had some life left in it yet.

At the moment, two people who would definitely be considered essential NERV personnel were carefully picking their way through one of the ruined sections of the city, searching for someone.

"Are you sure that Hikari's house was around here?" Misao asked.

"Not really," Shinji confessed. "There aren't really any landmarks here that I recognize, but I am pretty sure we're in the right general area. Besides, if we can't find where it was, I don't think Asuka would be able to, either."

Misao nodded, more than willing to trust her boyfriend's sense of direction, since she knew her own wasn't exactly stellar.

"Do you know where the Horaki's are?" she asked, more to fill the eerie silence than anything else, though she ironically found herself compelled to speak in hushed tones.

"Yeah," Shinji answered. "I asked Hikari about how they were doing when I called her to find out if Asuka was with her. They're still stuck in the shelters at the moment, but I think Hikari said that they're supposed to be going to Tokyo-2 in a week or so."

"Good," Misao said, though her sad voice belied her true feelings. "After all, there would be no point in my giving Pen-Pen to Hikari if they were just going to stay in the city."

Shinji gently took his girlfriend's hand. "I'm sure we'll be able to get him back after the war's finished."

"I hope so," Misao said.

"Hey…I think we're here," Shinji said, spying what he thought was a remaining section of the Horaki house.

"Damn," Misao commented, surveying the ruined home.

"I don't think Asuka would come here," Shinji said. "This place doesn't exactly offer shelter anymore."

"True, but we're here, so…"

Misao trailed off, frowning. Shinji opened his mouth to say something, but she held up a hand for silence.

"Synchronization level zero," they heard a familiar voice mumble. "I can't be the Second Child anymore…I'm useless…"

Shinji and Misao traded a quick look and then went rushing into the ruined building, soon finding Asuka laying in an empty bathtub, completely naked.

"Woah!" Shinji exclaimed, quickly averting his gaze.

"Asuka!" Misao exclaimed. "Asuka, are you all right?!"

The redhead only continued to mumble about her failings in response, and Misao grimaced, knowing she probably couldn't get Asuka to snap out of this.

Looking about, Misao soon found Asuka's clothes, which the redhead had, for some incomprehensible reason, gone to the trouble of neatly folding and placing on a nearby chair. The Fourth Child quickly picked them up and began to dress Asuka, a task that proved quite difficult thanks to the redhead's total lack of cooperation.

"Shinji, help me," Misao said.

"What? Me? But…" he stammered, then looked over at his girlfriend and noticed the glare she was directing at him. "Uh, all right."

Even with the two of them working together, dressing Asuka still took several minutes, though Shinji's refusal to look directly at her until they'd gotten her undergarments on might have had something to do with this. Certainly, getting the white blouse and the green dress onto her was much less of a struggle.

_Damn, she really does look awful this time,_ Shinji mused as he and Misao worked on getting Asuka's socks and shoes onto her feet, almost wishing he'd continued to keep his eyes off her.

Asuka's face was gaunt and her eyes had a distinctly sunken look to them. Shinji seriously doubted that she'd eaten anything since the last time he'd seen her, which had been days ago now.

"Come on," Misao said, "we need to carry her to a road that isn't destroyed so NERV can pick us up."

Shinji nodded, and the two grabbed Asuka and began to lug her off, in search of a more intact part of the city.

"I can't believe Section Two didn't find her," Shinji commented as they walked. "I mean, I know the average Two guy isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but not checking her best friend's place..."

"Not even Section Two is that incompetent," Misao said darkly. "They deliberately failed to find her."

"What? Why?" Shinji asked, baffled.

"I don't know," Misao said.

She did have a couple of guesses, including that Captain Chiron, the sexist pig, had done it because Asuka was a girl and he could get away with it now that the redhead was officially off the combat roster. However, she had no proof, and she didn't see how airing her suspicions about her old nemesis would help anything.

"Should we take her to NERV, then?" Shinji asked worriedly. "How are we to know it's safe for her there?"

"They won't do anything once she's officially in NERV Medical. That's just not the way these things work," Misao replied. "Besides, it's not like we have much choice. Asuka needs medical attention, and all the civilian hospitals in the city are closed."

Shinji sighed and nodded wearily.

* * *

Two hours later, Shinji and Misao were leaving NERV Medical, having seen Asuka safely to one of the rooms there. The doctors said she was suffering from malnutrition and severe dehydration, but that there was nothing else wrong with her. Not physically, anyway.

"This is so messed up," Shinji muttered.

"Tell me about it," Misao agreed.

"Well, let's go home," Shinji said, at a loss for anything else to say. So many words of sadness and mourning had been spoken recently that their constant repetition was starting to make them feel and sound hollow.

"Can't," Misao said regretfully. "I have tests scheduled for tonight. They're supposed to last all night, too. They want to watch my brainwaves while I sleep again," she added with a roll of her eyes.

"Again?" Shinji asked incredulously. "That'll make it five days this week alone!"

"Hey, it's not like I like it, either," Misao pointed out with a tiny grin.

"Yeah, I know," Shinji said with a sigh. "Want me to spend the night here? Keep you company?"

Misao shook her head. "I'd like that a lot, but they'd never allow it. Your presence might 'contaminate the experiment,'" she made a face as she added the last bit.

Shinji nodded. Practically the moment the Sixteenth Angel had died, NERV had started showing a renewed interest in duplicating the event that had turned Misao back into a teenager. He had no damned idea what had caused this, but he suspected that the war might actually be nearing its end and that someone high up in NERV, possibly his father even, was now frantically hoping to find the fountain of youth—which could easily be made into a fountain of money—before the cash from the UN stopped flowing.

Either that or his father was just using the potential for such a momentous discovery to keep his girlfriend away from him and make him miserable. And, if that were the case, then Gendo Ikari was succeeding beautifully.

"So," he said, "will I at least see you tomorrow?"

Misao nodded. "We'll at least get to see each other at the harmonics test."

"Harmonics test?" Shinji echoed.

"Yeah, they've found the Fifth Child, and he's supposed to report for duty tomorrow," Misao said. "So, they're giving us all a sync test. Didn't you remember?"

"No," he said, "I guess I'm just out of it."

"I think we all are," Misao said. She leaned forward and gave her boyfriend a quick kiss. "I'll see you tomorrow."

* * *

Shinji didn't immediately return home after parting ways with Misao. The truth was that he didn't want to go back to the apartment; Misao, Pen-Pen, and yes, even Asuka, were what had made the place home, as opposed to a space where he slept and kept his few belongings when he wasn't using them. Now, whenever Misao wasn't around, the silence of the place felt utterly oppressive.

So he'd resumed his habit of walking, even though it reminded him of that terrible month when Misao had been trapped inside Unit One. Better to dwell on a crisis which had passed, he reasoned, than to worry about those that were still ongoing. At least where Misao and his EVA were concerned, he could tell himself that it had all come out all right in the end.

Somehow, his wanderings brought him to the edge of Lake Ashi, and he found himself looking out over the water. The body of liquid shimmered in the fading light of day, and it seemed like the only thing in the area that the war had not had the power to touch.

Shinji was pulled out of his reverie by the sound of humming. Surprised that there was another person around, he turned and saw a boy of roughly his age sitting atop a decapitated stone statue.

_Ode to Joy,_ Shinji thought, his years both playing classical music on his cello and listening to it on his SDAT making identifying the song easy for him.

"The song is good," the boy commented. "The song brings us joy. Indeed, this song is the greatest achievement of the entire lilin culture."

_Lilin?_ Shinji wondered.

"Don't you think so?" the gray haired boy asked, turning to Shinji and allowing the Third Child to see his unusual, red eyes. "Shinji Ikari-san?"

Shinji blinked. "You know me?"

The boy's amused grin widened. "Everyone knows you," he said. "If you don't mind my saying so, you're quite unaware of your own position."

"Oh, right, I'm famous in the defense business," Shinji said tiredly.

It was a concept he understood but didn't think he'd ever _quite_ manage to entirely wrap his mind around.

The boy chuckled. "Indeed," he said. "I am Kaworu Nagisa, by the way. Like you, I have been selected to pilot. I am the Fifth Child."

_They've already found the Fifth,_ Shinji thought grimly, _and they're using him to replace Asuka like she's a broken cog in their machine._

"I see. Well, I guess I don't need to warn you that it can get rough while piloting EVA, not with this," Shinji gestured to the blasted cityscape, "all around us. All the same, be careful."

"Your words are well taken, Ikari-san," Kaworu said. "Thank you."

"Just 'Shinji' is fine. 'Ikari-san' sounds like my father," Shinji said, almost automatically.

Then he realized that he'd never heard his father addressed as "Ikari-san." It was always "Commander Ikari" or, if the man wasn't actually around to hear it, possibly any number of less than polite epithets. But never "Ikari-san."

"Very well, then," Kaworu said. "In that case, you may call me Kaworu."

Shinji nodded. "All right, Kaworu," he said. "Well, it's getting late. I should probably head home. I'll see you tomorrow at the harmonics test."

Kaworu nodded, that amused smile still on his face. "Until then."

Shinji walked off, finally en route for home. Kaworu remained where he was and watched the Third Child's receding form until he disappeared from view.

"Fascinating," he spoke to himself.

He had expected the Third Child to be an interesting study of the children of Lilith, but not to this extent. The song of Shinji Ikari's soul was unlike anything he had ever heard before. The relatively few lilin he'd encountered in his life up to now—Keel, other SEELE members, Keel's minions, and a handful of others—had an emptiness about them, as though a part of their souls had been left out during their creation.

It had made Kaworu feel very sorry for the lilin.

Yet Shinji Ikari was not like that. His soul was sad with recent tragedies and indescribably weary from the war, and there was even hate within it. Yet despite all this, there was a fundamental wholeness to it that he'd never encountered before in a lilin.

"Fascinating," Kaworu repeated, "I will definitely need to discover what makes you so unique during my time here, Shinji-kun."

* * *

"This whole thing is bizarre," Maya said as she looked over the Fifth Child's very minimal dossier. "The Fifth Child's records have all been erased, just like Rei's. Not only that, but the report from the Marduk Institute that names him the Fifth is being censured. I don't think that even the Commander can get at it."

Seated across from Maya at the small table in the minuscule break room, Ritsuko shifted in her uncomfortable chair (only the best for the hard working men and women of NERV). "The Committee sent him directly to us, and they're not telling us a thing about him. It is suspicious," she agreed.

"I can't fathom why the Committee would do such a thing, though," Maya said helplessly.

"People can have nefarious schemes even while working to save the world," Ritsuko said darkly. "It's just human nature."

Maya frowned slightly. "Do you…know something, sempai?"

"No, Maya," Ritsuko lied, taking a sip of her coffee so she wouldn't have to look the brunette in the eye as she did it. "I'm just a cynic."

For a moment, her former protégé gave her a look that made Ritsuko think that Maya didn't believe her for an instant. It made the bottle blonde's palms sweat. Maya was the one person that Ritsuko didn't think she could bring herself to lie to under any kind of real pressure, and it didn't help that she truly didn't know what the right thing to do in this particular situation was.

_The Fifth Child is probably also the Seventeenth Angel,_ Ritsuko thought. _But what will he do if NERV calls him on it? If he goes berserk…it could be worse than whatever SEELE plans to do with him. Far worse._

Fortunately, Maya saved her from further ruminations.

"Why are we here, anyway?" Maya asked, gesturing around herself at the break room.

"Because if we try and grab a minute of peace in my office, my subordinates will pester the hell out of us," Ritsuko answered. "Tech Division One's been pretty busy ever since we started this new push to understand Misato's physical regression."

Maya frowned. "Why has there been so much renewed enthusiasm in that project all of a sudden, anyway?"

Ritsuko shrugged. "The Committee's all but demanded that we redouble our efforts in that area. They even allowed us to devote the remainder of the City Reconstruction Fund to this project."

"Why would they do that now?" Maya asked.

Ritsuko, who knew that the question was even more puzzling than Maya realized, could only shrug helplessly. "To prove that they can?"

* * *

_I am getting so damn sick of all these tests,_ Misao thought disgustedly as she left the laboratory, heading for the test plugs. _Straight from being experimented on to a sync test…doesn't anyone in NERV understand the concept of people burning out if they're not allowed some time for themselves now and then?_

She briefly considered talking to Shinji about the two of them again threatening to cease piloting if the recent marathon of experiments and tests she'd had to endure wasn't scaled back but ultimately discarded the idea. She could deal with this, and it would be foolish to play that card more than was absolutely necessary.

_At least I can see Shin-chan now,_ she thought, unconsciously quickening her strides. _I swear, he's the only thing keeping me sane._

As if on cue, she turned a corner and spotted the Third Child, who was presumably also on his way to the harmonics test.

"Misao-chan," he greeted, grinning at her.

"Why hello, you," she grinned back.

Without any further exchange of words, she went right up to him and kissed him hungrily. He kissed back for a few seconds before he gently pushed her off, drawing a confused frown from her.

"As much as I like that, I think we should probably wait until we're alone," he said, gesturing with his head.

Blinking, Misao looked to the right of Shinji and realized that a boy she'd never met before with strange gray hair and red eyes was with him. She hadn't even noticed him there, set as she was on Shinji, despite the fact that the newcomer was standing right in plain sight.

"Oh…" Misao said, blushing slightly, embarrassed.

"I got lost on my way to the locker rooms and happened to encounter Shinji," the boy said cheerfully, looking quite nonplussed by the display of affection he'd just witnessed. "He was kind enough to offer to guide me."

Shinji shrugged self depreciatively. "We're going to the same place," he pointed out. "Anyway, Misao-chan, this is Kaworu Nagisa, the Fifth Child. Kaworu, this is Misao Katsuragi, the Fourth Child and my girlfriend."

"Nice to meet you," Misao said.

Kaworu just smiled and bowed in response.

"Um, I guess we should be heading for the locker rooms so we can get changed for the test," Shinji spoke into the somewhat awkward silence.

"Right," Misao said as Kaworu nodded.

The trio had soon completed the short trek to their destination, reaching the pair of doors that led to the two locker rooms set aside for the EVA pilots. Kaworu immediately headed inside the men's room, but Shinji and Misao lingered outside in the hallway.

"So, the Fifth Child, huh?" she asked.

He nodded. "Yeah, I bumped into him yesterday, and we spoke for a little while," he said. "He's kind of strange, but he seems okay."

Misao nodded, then leaned forward and kissed Shinji again. This time, the two didn't stop until they had to in order to breathe.

"I'll see you after the test," Misao said, then quickly headed into her locker room.

Smiling, Shinji proceeded into the men's locker room so he could change into his plug suit.

* * *

"Are these readings accurate?" Fuyutski asked, leaning on one of the consoles to look over Sakura's shoulder at her display.

"Yes, sir," Sakura answered. "The test monitoring systems are working perfectly. The MAGI detect no anomalies in the data gathering process."

"But this should be impossible," Maya said, frowning as she, too, studied the monitors. "The core of Unit Two hasn't even been reconfigured for the Fifth Child, and yet his sync ratio is even higher than Shinji's."

"It's impossible, but it's happening right before our eyes," Ritsuko said. "It's our job to discover what has made the impossible possible."

_Unless, of course, the Fifth decides to show us before we can, which I rather suspect is what will happen,_ she thought.

"Well, the testing is completed for today," Makoto said, bringing everyone back to the here and now.

Ritsuko nodded and leaned over to the microphone to speak to the pilots. "Kaworu, well done today," she said. "Misao, come see me after you've changed. I need to run more experiments. I'm afraid it's going to be another overnighter."

"What?!" both Misao and Shinji exclaimed simultaneously.

"I'm sorry," Ritsuko said sincerely, "but that's just the way it is."

* * *

A few hours later found Kaworu Nagisa wandering through the city, searching for Shinji, who he knew had gone off this way.

He was more interested in the Third Child than ever now, because the Fourth Child had a soul as complete as his. Kaworu would have been content speaking with the Fourth as well, but she was not an option at the moment.

The Fifth Child wasn't exactly sure where Shinji was in the pile of rubble that Tokyo-3 had become, but he wasn't overly concerned. Destiny would ensure that their paths crossed again this day, he was certain.

And his certainty was soon rewarded, as Kaworu soon came upon the Third Child.

"Do you make a habit of surveying the devastation that your war has wrought, Shinji-kun?" Kaworu asked mildly.

Shinji's eyes narrowed fractionally, and for a moment he considered pointing out that the war was now Kaworu's as much as his. He restrained himself, however; it simply wasn't in his nature to pick a fight for so minor a thing.

"I'm out here, because I don't want to go home," Shinji confessed. "It's too quiet there."

"That you have a home is a good fact," Kaworu said. "It will bring you joy."

Shinji shook his head. "It's not really a home if there's no one else to share it with," he said. "And with Misao stuck in NERV again…"

"Ah, I see," Kaworu said. "Well, perhaps you would like to spend the night in my room with me? It's not large, but you will not be alone."

Shinji considered for a moment, then nodded. "Arigato."

* * *

Not long afterwards, the two boys were in Kaworu's room within the Geofront. The room that NERV had bestowed upon the Fifth Child wasn't very large, and between Kaworu's bed and the futon Shinji was using, there was barely an inch of floor space left.

"I still think I should be the one on the floor," Kaworu commented.

"No, I'm the guest, I'll sleep on the floor," Shinji replied.

"Very well," Kaworu relented, and for a while there was silence. Then the Fifth Child's curiosity led him to speak up again. "Tell me about Misao."

Shinji smiled helplessly. "She's wonderful," he said. "She's always been so brave and so…lively, I guess, even though she has her own issues to deal with. I really admire that. I've been able to do things I never would have dreamed were possible for me, and all because of her."

It sounded like a rather feeble tribute to Shinji's ears, but he wasn't really surprised. He hadn't believed for a moment that mere words could hope to convey what he felt for Misao.

"Most humans are afraid of contact with others," Kaworu commented. "If you will excuse me for saying so, I had not expected you to be any different. And yet the two of you are clearly very close."

"I was afraid of contact," Shinji said, remembering just how hard it had been to tell Misao that he loved her. "Especially since my father abandoned me, back when I was a small child. I suppose I thought that if I never cared for anyone, then no one could ever hurt me like that again. But Misao...she cared about me, even though she never had to, and I found myself caring about her, too. And even though we've fought, we managed to make up. She was just completely worth the risk, in a way I'd never believed anyone ever could be."

Kaworu chuckled. "I might have been born just to meet you, Shinji-kun."

"Huh?"

He turned to look at Kaworu, thrown off by the strange comment. He was surprised to see the Fifth Child smiling down at him.

"I can see why she loves you so," Kaworu said.

Shinji blinked. It was a bizarre thing for a guy to say to another guy, especially considering that they had just met the other day. However, Kaworu had said it with such undeniable sincerity and with such an obvious lack of expectation of anything in return that Shinji found he wasn't nearly as perturbed as he might have expected.

"Um, thank you," Shinji said somewhat awkwardly.

* * *

Morning came, as it always did, and Kaworu rose right when he'd wanted to, quite without the aid of anything so crude as an alarm clock. Sitting up in bed with his usual smile on his face, he was entirely unsurprised to find that he was alone. There wasn't even any indication that a visitor had slept over the previous night; Shinji had apparently rolled up the futon he'd used and returned it to its proper place.

"Off to be with her once her tests are completed," Kaworu thought aloud.

Truly, he mused, the two of them were infinitely fascinating. Two lilin, with bodies as frail and hearts as fragile as any of their race, and yet they had achieved something that Kaworu had always assumed was impossible for their kind.

Complementation. Completion.

It was almost enough to make the Fifth Child laugh out loud. That which SEELE, the most powerful men in the world, had invested such enormous resources trying to obtain had been gained by a pair of not even fully grown lilin in some of the most inauspicious circumstances imaginable. It had come in a very different form than what SEELE desired, of course, but it was still enough to bring Kaworu boundless amusement.

It was also enough to make him question his purpose, for all the good it would do him. A wave of melancholy surged through him then, his smile fading as he contemplated what he must soon do, regardless of the revelation he'd so recently been treated to.

He soon perked up, however, his ubiquitous grin returning full force. Some time remained yet, and the inevitability of his task made it somehow easier to accept.

_Nothing is worse than uncertainty,_ he thought, recalling something Keel had once told him. He was glad his kind was spared such a curse, which could make anything, even the possibility of death, that much worse. _I wonder how the lilin deal with it._

With a mental shrug, the Fifth Child proceeded to dress and then headed out into the base proper. It wasn't long before he found himself in the medical ward, entering the room of his counterpart.

"Ohayo," he said cheerfully.

The bandage clad form of Rei Ayanami didn't respond, of course.

"I knew that you, like myself, had assumed the form of a lilin during your time here," Kaworu said. "However, I was unaware until just recently that the flesh you wore had become a prison."

Only the constant beeps of the machines nearby answered him.

"I must confess that I'm not sure how to feel at this discovery, my equal and opposite," Kaworu continued. "In a way, knowing you will not be able to oppose me puts my mind at ease, but in another way, I find it…disturbing."

He actually frowned slightly as he thought over this. Was this uncertainty? He didn't know whether he wanted to succeed or fail in his quest for the All-Father's body, so he supposed it was.

It didn't seem so terrible, but perhaps he was just missing the point. During the course of his brief life, Kaworu had done that often whenever the lilin and their emotions were concerned.

He silently regarded the First Child for a few more seconds, but there didn't seem to be anything else to say, except…

"Sayonara."

With that, Kaworu left, heading for the EVA cages. It seemed almost surreal, but the hour was upon him, and there was no denying the call.

Soon he found himself standing before the silent form of Unit Two. Unit One stood not far off, but Kaworu had no ability to influence it. That which was human within the purple berserker was still awake and would resist him. He wondered whether or not Shinji would be able to stop him with just Unit One.

"It's time," he said, turning back to Unit Two. "Awaken, dark shadow of Adam and servant of the lilin!"

The crimson giant raised its head, its four eyes burning with a demonic red light.

* * *

Shinji and Misao were walking toward the NERV cafeteria in search of breakfast. The food that Shinji cooked was better than the slop that NERV, which was forever pinching pennies, fed their employees, but they were too hungry to wait.

"So, Rits said that they're done with those stupid overnight tests!" Misao said cheerfully.

"Hey, that's great!" Shinji replied with a grin. "I've really been missing you around the apartment, and honestly, I could never figure out what they were expecting to learn with those tests anyway."

"Me either," Misao agreed. "I asked Rits a couple of times, but she always just gave me a bunch of technobabble. Anyway, I think—"

But what she thought was cut off by the sudden ringing of Shinji's cell phone. The Third Child frowned, knowing what this probably meant, and answered it. "Hai, moshi moshi."

Shinji was silent for a moment as he listened to the person on the other end of the line, and then his eyes widened, practically bugging out of his head. "N-No, that's impossible!" he protested. "He's my friend!"

Misao frowned, knowing that whatever Shinji was being told, it wasn't good. _Has something happened to Toji or Kensuke?_ She wondered.

"All right," Shinji said after the other person spoke again, sounding resigned. "I'm on my way."

"What's happening?" Misao asked as Shinji hung up and began to head back the way they had come.

"Kaworu's an Angel," Shinji said, evicting a gasp of surprise from Misao. "He's heading for Terminal Dogma right now."

"My god…" Misao breathed. "Shinji-kun, you don't have to fight him. I'll do it. He's your friend. I barely know the guy. Your sync ratio is only a few points higher than mine. Maya won't make a stink if I ask to take your place, especially since there isn't time to argue with us."

Shinji hesitated, even as he continued to stride toward the EVA cages. He was very, very tempted to take Misao up on her offer. However, the urge to keep her out of Unit One was so deeply ingrained in him that he was loathe to step aside now, even though he no longer believed that EVA would eventually ruin whoever tried to pilot it. That the last two battles had both seen a pilot fall certainly curbed his temptation to sit this one out.

"No," he said at last, his voice firm. "I can do this."

Misao pursed her lips as she considered the decision before her. Either allow her Shinji—a phenomenal EVA pilot but a man with a soul too gentle for war—to enter mortal combat against someone he considered a friend, or to try and stop him and risk the relationship that had brought her so much happiness.

It took her only a minute to reach her decision, but that moment of uncertainty felt like an eternity. "…I understand," she said softly.

* * *

Tabris smiled serenely as he floated downwards, the red giant behind him clearing his path to Adam by smashing the layers of ultra-dense armor that fortified NERV like they were made of tinfoil. Yet hidden behind his usual grin was a growing feeling of anxiety.

"Shinji-kun is late," he noted.

Destiny mandated that Unit One, Lilith's true offspring, should oppose him. He had a suspicion that destiny had been altered—though whether for the better or the worse, he knew not—but not for a moment did he believe that any force could prevent this inevitable clash.

And less than a minute later he was proven correct as he spotted Unit One descending down the shaft, quickly approaching Unit Two.

"I've been waiting for you, Shinji-kun," Tabris said.

"Shinji's not here, you two-faced monster!" Misao's voice boomed from Unit One's external speakers.

Tabris' eyes widened in genuine shock, and he recoiled visibly. He had truly not expected Misao to take Shinji's place.

Then, once he recovered from the surprise, he threw his head back and laughed.

"What's so funny?!" Misao demanded as Unit One drew closer and closer to striking distance.

"I hadn't realized how protective of one another you lilin would be," Tabris said. "But now that I think of it, I should have expected it, especially from you and Shinji-kun."

"Don't you call him that! You're no friend of his!" Misao snapped.

Unit One finally came close enough to attack, and Misao didn't waste an instant, lashing out immediately at Tabris. However, Unit Two intercepted its counterpart before the test type Evangelion could touch the Angel, and the two began to grapple.

It was then that Misao felt the same sort of rage that had descended upon her when she'd faced the Fourteenth Angel return, her vision going almost as red as Unit Two's armor.

Not long after her return from inside Unit One, she had told Shinji that she'd had her fill of battling the Angels, and she'd tried to mean it. She'd told herself that tearing apart that Angel with such ferocity (even if it had more been the EVA than her) _should_ have sated her hunger for vengeance. She had constantly reminded herself that her relationship with Shinji was the best thing that had ever happened to her, and it was very possible that she'd send it into a downwards spiral if she fought with him over who got to pilot Unit One. Besides, Shinji was, by that point, very much a veteran EVA pilot, and Very Bad Things tended to happen whenever _she_ stepped inside one for anything other than training simulations.

But all her attempts at persuading herself had failed, she found out now. She still hated the Angels with every fiber of her being and craved to spill their blood.

She had entered this battle to spare Shinji the pain of killing a friend, but now she was fighting for less altruistic reasons.

"Damn you!" she shouted, commanding Unit One's left shoulder pylon to open and make her progressive knife available to her, just as Unit Two did the exact same thing. "_I'll kill you!_"

The two Evangelions grabbed their weapons and struck, Unit One's dagger-like knife colliding with Unit Two's much more utilitarian blade. The sound of metal striking metal echoed through the shaft, and a shower of sparks bathed the faces of the two EVA Units with a harsh, eerie light.

"Your soul contains so much hate for my kind," Tabris commented, not sounding very perturbed.

"Your kind are monsters who killed my parents and are _still_ trying to kill everyone I care about!" Misao retorted through gritted teeth.

With a cry, the Fourth Child slammed her progressive knife into the side of Unit Two's neck, burying it all the way to the hilt. Had she been in any other state of mind, she might have regretted having to damage Asuka's precious EVA in such a manner.

Yet despite this grievous injury, Unit Two barely slowed down. The red EVA plunged its own knife into Unit One's chest, and Misao cried out in pain and rage.

"How the hell are you using Unit Two like this?!" she demanded.

"I am made of the same flesh as EVA," Tabris explained. "That allows me to sync with it very easily, so long as the soul it contains does not oppose me, and the soul within Unit Two has—"

He was cut off abruptly as Misao rapidly pulled her knife from Unit Two's neck and attempted to strike Tabris with it. However, the blade struck a wall of orange light that stopped it cold mere meters before it could touch the Seventeenth Angel.

"An AT field?"

"Yes, that is what you lilin call this thing," Tabris confirmed. "It is the sacred wall around my soul which no one must ever intrude upon!"

"I don't care!" Misao snapped, clearly in no mood to listen to philosophy from an Angel.

She struck again and again with her prog knife, but to no avail. No matter how much she strengthened Unit One's AT field, she couldn't neutralize Tabris' enough to leave him vulnerable to her attacks. It was maddening to see one of her most hated foes so close but be unable to hurt him.

Suddenly, the two Evangelions landed in the lake of LCL that existed in the most forbidden and dangerous part of NERV, sending up a massive splash. It was fortunate that Misao was too concerned with the battle to realize that the place bore a striking resemblance to the Antarctic Ocean, otherwise numerous bad memories would have been stirred up by the sight.

Getting her EVA back on its feet, Misao looked up to see Tabris floating lazily toward a massive, armored door, the huge locking bolts of which obediently began to slide open before him.

"Oh no you don't!" Misao snapped, moving to pursue him.

She was halted before she could take two steps, however, and turned back to see Unit Two clutching onto Unit One's ankle. Her face twisted into a snarl, and had Unit Two been able to see it, it might well have lain down and played dead.

Meanwhile, Tabris floated into the LCL Production Plant, the place where NERV kept one of its most important possessions: Lilith, the Second Angel. Her huge, white form was nailed to an equally massive red cross.

"Adam, our All-Father," Tabris said softly as he hovered before the masked face of the crucified Angel. "Must all those born of Adam return to Adam? Even at the cost of destroying humanity?"

Suddenly, his eyes widened as the critical revelation dawned on him. "No! This is…Lilith? I see! So that's what this is all about, lilin."

There was suddenly a great crash from behind him, and he turned to see Unit Two collapsing into the LCL, blue blood pouring from the great wound Unit One had left in its head with its progressive knife. The violet titan marched forward, now no longer needing to worry about its ally turned enemy, and reached out to grab Tabris.

Only to have its fingers collide with that damnable barrier of orange light.

The Fourth Child began to scream all kinds of epithets and curses at him, beating on Tabris' AT field with Unit One's fists, but as unable to penetrate his shield as ever. The final Angel watched his would-be destroyer impassively, not sure what his next step should be. Suicide was not within his power, so he could not just lower his AT field and allow Misao to end him. However, finding that it was Lilith who was before him and not Adam complicated everything significantly.

_To be one with the Black Moon…_ he mused. _To join with a Seed of Life that is alien to me…what would be the result?_

Even he, with all his knowledge and power, had no idea, and given the choice, he would have very much preferred to become one with Adam. However, he didn't know the true location of the All-Father. He could search for an eternity, and the clever lilin might keep it from his grasp forever.

In the end, it seemed as though fate left him with little choice, as he felt himself compelled to become one with Lilith. He only hoped that, whatever resulted from such a union, it would have the capacity for the same kind of completion that Shinji and Misao provided one another.

* * *

Meanwhile, far above the depths of Terminal Dogma, the various machines that monitored Rei Ayanami's vital signs began to beep more quickly, their steady rhythm dissolving into a desperate, urgent melody.

As Rei's vitals began nearing the danger zone, the First Child stirred, despite the powerful sedatives that still coursed through her system to protect her the agony she would be in if she awoke.

Dry, cracked lips moved for the first time in days, and she spoke in a tiny, croaking voice, barely loud enough to be heard. "No…don't hurt…friends…won't let you…"

* * *

A low, deep growl rumbled through Terminal Dogma, and Tabris, who had been moments away from becoming one with Lilith, stopped abruptly. "Impossible," he whispered, sounding almost awed.

Lilith seemed not to care whether Tabris thought her actions were impossible or not. The great, white figure raised her head, moving under her own power for the first time in eons. The seven eyes of the SEELE mask on her face seemed to glare at Tabris, and the Seventeenth Angel could feel Lilith's AT field expanding, rapidly nullifying his own.

"I underestimated you," Tabris said to the Second Angel.

An instant later, Unit One finally managed to pierce the barrier of orange light protecting Tabris, and it quickly grabbed the last Angel in its massive fist.

"Got you!" Misao barked triumphantly. "Any last words, monster?"

Tabris nodded. "Thank you," he said softly.

"Thank you?" Misao echoed incredulously, feeling some of her anger ebbing away, confusion taking its place.

"Yes," Tabris said. "For allowing me to escape my fate. I was destined to live forever, even if humanity was annihilated as a result. Only through my death is this outcome averted, only through my defeat could I stop, and I am glad to see it so. Yours is _not_ the existence that should die."

Misao blinked dumbly, completely shocked at the Angel's willingness to accept death. They weren't supposed to want humanity to continue! They were supposed to die kicking and screaming and trying to take as many innocent people with them as possible! It was antithetical to everything she knew of the Angels!

"Also," Tabris continued, "thank you for taking Shinji-kun's place in this. I never wished to sadden him by forcing him to end me."

"God _damn_ you," Misao hissed, her voice utterly venomous.

With naught but a few words, the final messenger had denied her the satisfaction of killing one of the same monsters that had murdered her father. He had become…well, perhaps not human, but far more than a shadow of the terrible specter from her past.

She couldn't even tell herself that he was lying. He was just so infuriatingly _sincere_.

Tabris smirked. "I suspect that He shall, but all the same, please end me."

With a scowl, Misao clenched Unit One's fist, taking none of the joy from the sensation of the last Angel's body coming apart like wet clay that she would have mere minutes ago.

* * *

Up in her room, Rei ceased muttering to herself, and the beeping of the machines around her resumed their usual patterns. Her body relaxed, and for a few moments, the barest hint of a smile was visible on her face.

* * *

It took almost an hour for Unit One and Misao to be retrieved and returned to the EVA cages, but the Fourth Child didn't complain. She just waited patiently, brooding over how the triumph of her revenge had been stolen from her, feeling depressed and morose.

Kaworu had been an Angel. She wasn't supposed to feel bad about killing him, but she found herself unable to entirely dispel that sharp little barb of guilt that twisted in her stomach.

_He had no control over himself,_ she thought. _He didn't want to do what he had to do. He was glad that I killed him._

She wondered if all the other Angels had been similarly forced to do as they had done, and even recalling the sight of Adam's four, fiery wings stretching across the sky from horizon to horizon on the day of Second Impact couldn't make her not care about the question.

When at last Unit One was safely berthed within its cage, Misao ejected the entry plug and climbed out, bracing herself for the severe dressing down she was certain to get from the Commander.

Yet when she stepped out onto the catwalk, she found only Maya standing there to meet her, and her successor to the post of Operations Director didn't look ready to fly off the handle. Then again, Maya never did.

"Hello, Misao," the brunette greeted.

"Uh, hi, Maya," Misao replied. "No reprimand?"

Maya arched an eyebrow, a trace of a smirk visible on her face. "No," she said. "I admit I was pretty angry when you just showed up and announced that you'd be piloting, because Shinji was 'indisposed.' But, we won, and I suspect there's nothing I can do to make you sorry about taking his place."

Misao nodded. That was true. Not even the effect that slaying Kaworu had had on her was enough to make her regret protecting Shinji.

"And the Commanders don't seem to mind that much, especially after the battle was over," Maya said with a shrug. "They were surprisingly indifferent about what you did, actually. So I figured I might as well save my breath."

"Thanks, Maya," Misao said quietly.

"However, you really do need to explain what happened to Shinji," Maya added.

"Oh, I'm surprised he hasn't turned up yet," Misao said, looking somewhat sheepish. "You see…"

* * *

Shinji groaned softly as he regained consciousness, looking about the dark little room he was in with confusion. He was still somewhat disoriented. He stood up, his back popping as he did so, thanks to the rather unnatural position he'd been in.

"What happened?" he wondered aloud.

He remembered getting a call to sortie because an Angel had been detected, and that Misao had offered to take his place. He also remembered that he'd said no, and Misao had been surprisingly willing to accept that. Then, it was all a blank.

It wasn't hard for him to figure out what must have happened after that.

"Jeeze," he muttered to himself, as the realization that Misao had knocked him out and crammed him…somewhere or another began to sink in.

Though he hadn't ever really given it any thought, he'd always more or less known that his girlfriend was capable of beating him up. Military training and all that. However, he hadn't realized that she could take him down for the count so efficiently that he wouldn't even know what had hit him.

Then the rest of his higher brain functions started going again, and the fact that Misao was going off to fight the Angel in his place truly clicked, quickly shoving his bruised ego aside.

"Misao!" he exclaimed as he began to grope around in the dark, eventually finding a doorknob.

He threw the door open, causing light to flood in, making Shinji squint and allowing him to discover that he'd been inside a broom closet. He staggered out, trying to work out the kink in his legs as quickly as possible.

"Shin-chan?"

He turned, seeing Misao approaching him, clad in her plug suit. Maya was walking a pace or two behind her.

"Misao-chan!" Shinji exclaimed. "The Angel? Kaworu?"

"He's dead, Shin-chan," Misao replied, sadly, directing her gaze down to the floor.

Shinji swallowed. "Are you all right? You're not hurt, are you?" he asked.

"I'm not hurt, but…I'm not exactly all right, either," she confessed.

Shinji gently gripped her shoulders. "You should have let me fight," he said softly.

"No," Misao replied firmly, shaking her head and finally meeting his eyes. "Much as having to kill him hurt me, I think it would have destroyed you."

Shinji's eyes narrowed for a moment, then softened. "Thank you, then," he said eventually.

They embraced one another, and Maya cleared her throat, reminding the two teenagers that they weren't alone and getting their attention.

"You two are free to go home whenever you wish," she said. "Oh, and Misao, just because I'm letting you off without punishment this time, don't think you'll be so lucky if you pull this stunt again."

"I understand," Misao said.

Maya nodded and headed off, certain that the paperwork was already piling up on her desk. Shinji and Misao exchanged a glance, then began to walk in the opposite direction, hand in hand.

* * *

Author's Notes: Whew, for whatever reason, this chapter just didn't want to come, and I'm glad that I finally got it all down. Not much else to say here, except that a lot of episode 24 is pretty damned ambiguous when you really start looking at it, and the director's cut version is even worse.

Cloud Dancer1014, well, I tend to think of Gendo as the kind of villain who has a contingency plan wherever possible. I can't say more than that.

Popkov, I never actually mentioned that the other EVA's had had their self destructs removed, since I figured that everyone would probably realize what implications that would have for the battle against the Sixteenth. However, it seemed like something NERV would do, for various reasons.

As always, thanks to my readers and reviewers. Now, since you're probably as tired of all the angst as I am, let's have some fun!

* * *

Omakes

Why Hath Thou Forsaken Us?

"Sir, I'm telling you, the MAGI aren't detecting any type of black/white pattern whatsoever," Hyuga Makoto said, trying not to let his exasperation with his superior officer show.

"Keep looking!" Fuyutski barked.

"Yes, sir," Makoto said, holding back a sigh.

Aoba shook his head slightly. "If this thing is so important, whatever it is, why were the MAGI programmed to ignore its pattern?" he muttered to his colleagues.

"I heard that," the aged Vice Commander barked. "It's because we never assumed he would leave or that he could be killed."

The bridge techs exchanged confused looks but decided not to ask.

Suddenly, Maya spoke up. "Sir! I've checked the MAGI's logs, and it seems that it recorded the black/white pattern leaving the city a few days ago."

"Where is it now?" Fuyutski demanded.

"Unknown, sir," Maya said. "It's been outside of our sensors' range for days now."

With a sigh, Fuyutski practically collapsed into his chair. He never thought he'd see this day come.

No matter what Gendo did, the former professor had always had faith that at least the world wouldn't end, because the greatest Grandmaster Spy ever wouldn't _let_ it end. But now he was without hope.

Agent Pen-Pen had left the city.

"Truly, we are all boned," Fuyutski proclaimed grimly.

(A/N: Seriously, in canon, you just knew that when Misato sent away Pen-Pen, the comic relief character, that there was _no_ chance of things getting better.)

* * *

Jealousy

"You have a heart of glass," Kaworu commented as he and Shinji sat in the shower together, "worthy of love."

"Huh?"

"I'm saying I love you," Kaworu said, placing a hand over Shinji's.

Shinji quickly pulled his hand back. "Uh, I don't think you want to do that…"

"Oh, but I really do," Kaworu said, his grin widening.

"No. First of all, I'm not interested," Shinji said. "Secondly, I seriously doubt that my harem will like it, and they seem to have this crazy sixth sense that lets them know when somebody comes onto me."

Kaworu blinked. "Harem?"

Shinji nodded. "Yes, though I don't call them that," he said. "They wouldn't like it, and it would make them realize I'm not exactly the innocent boy that just _happened_ to have multiple women fall into his lap that they think I am."

"I…see," Kaworu lied. "But isn't a little absurd to suggest that they'll just somehow _know_ that I tried—"

"Keep your mitts off our Shin-chan!"

The two boys turned to see a small pack of very angry looking young women standing in the doorway to the shower room.

"Uh oh…" Kaworu muttered.

"Get him!" Misao commanded, and the gang of women converged on Kaworu, all of them punching and kicking at the hapless Fifth Child.

"Wait!" Kaworu exclaimed. "Stop! Don't you realize that Shinji's just using you!? He calls you his harem!"

"Liar!" Ritsuko cried.

"Our Shin-chan would never do such a thing!" Maya added.

The horde of women redoubled the punishment they were dishing out on the Fifth Child. Shinji just watched for a few seconds, then he grabbed a towel and began to reach for his clothes.

"Don't get dressed, baka!" Asuka snapped. "We're all going to need to celebrate our victory after we're done with Nagisa!"

"Oh, okay. Sorry," Shinji said meekly, laughing on the inside.


	20. Chapter 20

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

Chapter Twenty: **Choice/Once More Into the Breach, Dear Friends**

"I just don't get it," Shinji said.

Seated on the opposite side of Asuka's hospital bed, Misao looked up at her boyfriend. "Don't get what exactly?" she asked. "Because from where I'm sitting, a whole bunch of crap that doesn't make any sense has happened."

"True, but what I'm talking is how they won't let us…" he looked down at Asuka and hesitated, as though guilty about saying it in front of her, despite her lack of awareness. "How they won't let us leave."

"I don't know," Misao said. "It could be that there are more Angels coming. The rumor that the Seventeenth was the last could be just that, a rumor."

"But then why hasn't my father just made an announcement to that effect?" Shinji asked.

Misao could only shrug helplessly in way of reply, and silence reigned, marred only by the beeps of the medical machines in the room.

_We used to be so happy,_ Shinji thought morosely, looking at his girlfriend's downcast features. _Now…_

Now it seemed like he could barely remember what the boundless joy he'd experienced after discovering that she loved him had felt like. The quiet euphoria that had come with waking up to find his new girlfriend sleeping next to him for the first time seemed like it was something he'd enjoyed decades ago. The shroud of misery that had been cast over Tokyo-3 by recent events was that stifling, and what had once filled them with such incredible happiness was now only keeping them from breaking under the strain.

That was why he and Misao had asked to be evacuated to Tokyo-2 when they'd heard the rumors that the war was over. It felt like it would be running away to Shinji, but as both he and Misao were reaching the limits of their tolerance, they'd decided to leave if they could anyway. Unfortunately, their request had been flatly rejected—without any kind of explanation, of course—so in Tokyo-3 they remained, keeping vigil over their fallen comrade.

"I wonder why my father isn't allowing us to see Rei lately?" Shinji mused aloud, looking up at the ceiling as he tried to make some kind of sense of recent events.

"I don't know, but I doubt it's for any reason we'd consider good," Misao said darkly.

He turned his gaze from the now familiar ceiling to the purple haired young woman seated on the other side of Asuka's bed. Misao looked small somehow, as if killing Kaworu had physically depleted her somehow. It made Shinji's insides twist with guilt.

"Misao-chan, please, come here," he said.

"Huh? Why?"

"Because I want to hold you," he answered simply.

She gave him a small smile and got up, walking around Asuka's bed and seating herself on his lap. He encircled his arms around her waist and held her against himself, drinking in the warmth of her body.

"Shin-chan?" Misao spoke after a few seconds.

"Yes, Misao-chan?"

"Don't you dare die," she said, voice quiet but firm. "Don't you dare. You're all I have."

"Right back at you," he said with a tiny, rather rueful smile.

They lapsed into silence again, but the quiet had lost its oppressive quality, at least for the moment. It wasn't long before the two emotionally exhausted teenagers had fallen asleep together.

* * *

While his son and his son's girlfriend stole a moment of peace in the calm before the storm, Gendo Ikari met with the SEELE council for the final time. The enormously powerful but clandestine organization had been a greater enemy of mankind than the Angels could have ever hoped to be, and they had outlasted the children of Adam as well. Now with the Angels destroyed, only one true obstacle remained in their path to godhood.

NERV.

"The time is at hand," SEELE-01 said. "With the death of the Seventeenth Angel, we can finally proceed with the final phase of the Human Instrumentality Project. However, with the Lance of Longinus lost to us, we can no longer use Lilith for this purpose. Our only option is to use Lilith's one true offspring: EVA Unit One."

"That was not part of the plan," Gendo said flatly. "Humanity must survive and shape this new world. _That_ is why we created the EVA series. Not for this."

"We need not cast aside our human forms to use EVA as our personal ark," SEELE-09 said.

"It's merely part of the process to free us all for rebirth," SEELE-12 added.

"The fate of destruction is also the joy of rebirth!" exclaimed SEELE-08, his voice full with the ecstasy of a zealot.

"Through the sacrament of death, god, humanity, and all living things will be reborn and united as one," SEELE-02 proclaimed.

"Death creates nothing," Gendo replied contemptuously.

"Your death will create an opportunity," SEELE-01 replied.

With that, the monoliths winked out of sight, vanishing with a soft whooshing sound.

Save for SEELE-01's monolith.

Gendo narrowed his eyes at it. "Something you forgot to tell me, Keel?"

The monolith was suddenly replaced by the cybernetic figure of Lorenz Keel. The visor that the man wore somehow did nothing to hide the intensity of his glare. He was the only man alive who was Gendo's equal in both overwhelming presence and sheer evil.

"Don't try and stop us, Ikari," Keel warned. "Just stand aside and allow us to complete our scenario. You might live long enough to see the rebirth of mankind that way."

"Why should I?" Gendo asked, narrowing his eyes.

Here at the end, there was no need to maintain the old, tattered of illusion of alliance between SEELE and NERV, after all.

"Your nephilim is a useless hunk of roasted meat," Keel replied. "Whatever scenario you had is dead."

Keel's hologram vanished from the virtual meeting chamber, leaving Gendo alone.

"That's what you think," Gendo spoke into the darkness.

* * *

Despite the two promotions Maya had received since Misao had been forced to step down from her position as the Operations Director, neither Makoto nor Aoba had ever really viewed her any differently. Oh, they followed her orders, but it was difficult for them to really see Maya as their superior officer, and they had certainly never felt intimidated by her. Even Sakura, who had always been below Maya, felt at ease around her.

So it was really little surprise that they had no qualms about her joining their little group on the bridge as they drank coffee, ate snacks, and waited for the other shoe to drop.

"I just don't get why we're being kept at yellow alert," Makoto muttered before munching on a cookie.

"Me neither," Sakura agreed. "Everybody's saying that the war's over, and I've even heard rumors of disbanding NERV. But the commanders sure as hell aren't acting as if we're done."

"Obviously, the brass knows something we don't," Aoba said, taking a sip of his coffee.

Almost as one, the three bridge techs turned toward Maya.

"Hey, don't look at me!" the Ops Director said, holding her hands up. "The Commander's recent orders are just as inscrutable to me as they are to all of you. I haven't even seen him recently. I think he might be meeting with the Committee."

"The Committee," Aoba grumbled. "I wonder what the old geezers who control the purse strings are—"

He was cut off as one of the phones nearby began to ring. Frowning, Sakura answered it, "NERV command center."

She was silent for a few seconds as the person on the other end of the line spoke, her features slowly but surely changing into an expression of fear and confusion.

"L-Let me put my superior on," Sakura stammered, taking the phone away from her ear and holding it out to Maya. "It's a JSSDF general."

Frowning, Maya accepted the received. "Hai, this is Major Ibuki."

"Major Ibuki, I am General Tachiki. The Japanese government has launched special order 8-801," came the imposing voice of someone who was clearly unwilling to be denied. Ever. "This means that your organization's legal protection has been revoked, and command has been transferred to the regular Japanese military. Which means that _I_ now command NERV. You are ordered to stand down any and all defenses you may have and submit to a search to be conducted by the military."

"Wh-What?" Maya sputtered, before managing to regain some semblance of composure. "Wait a minute! I don't have the authority to surrender to you. Let me track down Commander Ikari, or—"

"Your lack of cooperation is disappointing," Tachiki said, cutting her off. "You have left us with no choice."

He hung up immediately after making this ominous statement, leaving Maya to stare dumbly at the receiver.

"What's going on?" Aoba asked curiously.

"I think we're in trouble," Maya said, finally placing the receiver back into its cradle.

Before any of the bridge techs could ask her to elaborate, alarms suddenly began to go off all over the command center. The three top technicians immediately spun their chairs around to face their stations and began typing frantically.

"Oh my god, we're being hacked!" Makoto exclaimed.

"By who?" Maya asked, even though she already had a pretty good idea.

"_All_ of the other MAGI!" Makoto said, clearly incredulous.

Maya's eyes widened. She had expected that the Matsushiro MAGI would be turned against them, but having the supercomputers in Germany, America, and China pitted against them as well took her by surprise.

"Red alert!" she ordered. "Inform the commanders of the situation. And somebody get Dr. Akagi! If anyone can stop the takeover of the MAGI, she can."

* * *

Meanwhile, down in NERV Medical, Commander Ikari was walking into the room where Rei Ayanami lay. Behind his amber glasses, his perpetually cold gaze softened just the slightest bit as he looked at her bandaged clad form.

Gendo Ikari was a man of many contradictions. Most people who knew him believed he was entirely heartless, but this wasn't quite true. He still retained the capacity for love and caring, but these things had become twisted and perverted by his sorrow over Yui's death, becoming just as monstrous as hate and malice. This was why he was able to tell Rei that any one of her incarnations was utterly replaceable countless times over the course of her life, and yet still feel a stab of terror when she did something suicidal. It was why he was able to bring so much misery down upon Yui's son in the name of being with Yui again.

It was also why he wasn't going to take the simplest course of action, namely killing Rei II and activating Rei III to use for commencing Third Impact.

Instead, he removed a large syringe from his pocket and used his teeth to remove the plastic cap that covered the needle. Inside the syringe was a concoction that consisted of LCL, over a dozen different hormones (not all of which were naturally found in humans), and various other chemicals. It would have killed a normal human.

So it was fortunate that Rei Ayanami was no such thing.

Gendo carefully positioned the needle, then plunged it deep into her. His aim was true, and the tip of it soon penetrated her S2 organ.

Rei's super solenoid organ—or Fruit of Life, for those few who had studied the Dead Sea Scrolls—was generally dormant. She could activate it in order to generate an AT field, but that took considerable, conscious effort on the part of the First Child.

As the unholy mixture Gendo had administered flooded the walnut sized organ, however, it suddenly came entirely to life, operating at full capacity for the very first time. The remarkable regenerative abilities of the Angels, which had allowed both the Third and the Seventh to recover from nuclear assaults, was suddenly Rei Ayanami's. The horrific burns that marred almost every centimeter of her skin faded away in seconds, and the First Child released a small gasp as she regained consciousness, her crimson eyes popping open abruptly.

"Rei, get dressed and come with me," Gendo ordered gruffly. "It's time."

The First Child blinked, too shocked over being conscious again to immediately comply. Thanks to the serum Gendo had injected her with, all the light in the room seemed brighter, and every sound louder. It should have been both deafening and blinding, but it wasn't. Not only that, but time seemed to be moving more slowly, as if the gaps between seconds had elongated somehow. Rei somehow knew that, at the current moment, she had reflexes that would put a cat to shame.

"Yes, Commander," she said, sitting up and beginning the task of unwinding the now unnecessary bandages that covered her form.

* * *

_Am I doing the right thing here?_ Ritsuko mused as she again found herself crawling around inside Casper's innards, working to install the type 666 firewall and stop SEELE's attempts at taking over Tokyo-3 without firing a single shot.

This was, after all, as powerful as she was going to be this day. Nobody else had the expertise to protect the MAGI from its sister supercomputers; if she refused to assist, Gendo's scenario would fail.

But SEELE's would succeed.

_Talk about being between a rock and a hard place,_ she thought with a trace of dark humor. _Or between the devil and the deep blue sea!_

The power to hand either Gendo or SEELE victory. That was all she had, which really just amounted to choosing what flavor the apocalypse had when it came.

SEELE, she knew, wanted to 'reunite' humanity into a combined super being by removing all the AT fields which allowed people to be separate, individual entities. The result would be a massive hive mind…one that the consciousnesses of the SEELE council would reign supreme over, of course.

The thought of _that_ group achieving godhood sent shivers down her spine.

Gendo, on the other hand, wanted Yui. That was all the Supreme Commander of NERV yearned for, Ritsuko knew. What plans he had for the rest of humanity—_if_ he had plans for the rest of humanity—were a mystery to her. He'd never discussed the more…metaphysical elements of the Human Instrumentality Project with her. Those conversations he had had with Fuyutski, and the old professor wasn't about to divulge any secrets to her, especially not now that they'd reached endgame.

_Gendo wins today if you do this, SEELE wins later if you don't…what the hell kind of a choice is that?_ She wondered, even as she continued to install the firewall, working on autopilot.

In the end, she opted to protect her mother from invasion and activated the firewall.

"Amazing," Maya said as Ritsuko crawled out of Casper, the number of the beast appearing on the main screen. "I never would have believed such a powerful firewall could exist."

"All external access has been cut off for the next 62 hours," Ritsuko said.

"Somehow, I doubt that Tokyo-2 will just decide to stop now that we're stopped them from taking over the MAGI," Aoba said grimly.

As if on cue, one of the doors to the command center slid open and Vice Commander Fuyutski strode in. "An astute assessment, Lieutenant Aoba," he said. "Stay on your toes, people. We haven't seen the worst yet."

"Commander Fuyutski, where is Commander Ikari?" Maya demanded. "We need him here."

"Commander Ikari is indisposed right now," Fuyutski replied, in a voice that brooked no objections.

Maya just shook her head, scowling. "Have we been able to raise Tokyo-2 yet?"

"No, ma'am," Sakura answered. "They're refusing to speak with us."

Maya took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. "Keep trying," she ordered. "Everyone else, stay sharp and be ready for anything."

Despite knowing what was coming, Ritsuko couldn't help but smile. A few months ago, Maya would have gone straight to pieces in this situation, but now she was holding it together admirably. The petite brunette had grown so much since she'd left Ritsuko's department.

The bottle blonde suddenly recalled what Maya had told her, when Ritsuko had confessed that she'd done something incredibly cowardly and terrible.

_You can either accept the consequences of what you did and move on, or you can do whatever it takes to try and fix it._

Maybe that was the real choice she had to make this day.

"I can't accept the consequences of letting Instrumentality commence," she muttered to herself. "So I guess I have to fix this situation…somehow."

"Did you say something, Dr. Akagi?" one of the junior technicians nearby asked.

"No," she replied, "just thinking."

"Oh, all right," the junior tech said, turning his attention back to his station.

Ritsuko carefully looked around to check that no one was watching her at the moment, then quietly slipped out of the command center.

* * *

Tokyo-3 was quiet, like a graveyard. The once bustling metropolis had been reduced to a pile rubble. Only on the outskirts and below in the Geofront did intact structures exist, and most of those on the surface were abandoned, mere empty shells.

Yes, Tokyo-3 was quiet, until the order came in from Tokyo-2 to attack.

Then the JSSDF soldiers who were hiding in the foliage outside of NERV headquarters broke cover as they advanced, their rifles in hand. Heavy tanks moved into action, the ground shaking as their treads rolled across the ground. VTOL attack aircraft emerged from behind the nearby mountains and advanced on the city. Artillery pieces stationed on the surface launched their payloads, causing the few skyscraper sized weapons turrets that remained standing to erupt into massive orange fireballs.

SEELE had unleashed hell upon Tokyo-3, and it would not be quiet there again for a long time to come.

* * *

"Oh my god!" Makoto exclaimed as he tried to keep up with all the battle reports and distress signals that were flooding his screen. "We're being invaded by the JSSDF! They're attacking through every entrance!"

"And blasting a few more of their own!" Aoba added in an equally stressed out tone. "Damn, I'll bet they've been planning this for months! No wonder our security budget was cut to the bone!"

"It looks like they're concentrating their attacks on the west side of the base!" Sakura spoke up.

Maya frowned, trying to think even as more reports (all of them grim) came in from all over the base. Never before as the Operations Director had she had to deal with such a flood of information all at once, and she had to admit that it was overwhelming her. She didn't know what data she should ignore and which she should give her attention to.

"What's on the west side that's worth the attackers' attention?" Maya asked over the chaos the command center was rapidly devolving into.

There was a rather pregnant pause on the second tier of the bridge as the three top technicians looked blankly at one another, then at Maya.

"What's on the west side of the base?" Maya demanded, unable to hide the stress she was feeling. "List it off if nothing important jumps out at you!"

"Uh, there's the barracks," Makoto said.

"Some of the Project-E laboratories," Sakura said.

"The Pribnow Box and the Silver Bell," Aoba added.

Maya frowned. "They wouldn't be interested in any that," she said. It took only a moment later for realization to dawn. "The attack on the west side is a diversion!"

"A diversion from what?" Makoto asked.

"The only thing NERV has that makes us worth this much trouble," Maya said, working it out aloud, "the Evangelions. And the Evangelions…the Evangelions don't work without the Children. They're the real the targets! Where are they?"

"Asuka, Shinji, and Misao are all in room 303 of the Medical Ward," Aoba said. "Rei's location is…unknown."

"Find her!" Maya commanded. "Order Shinji and Misao to get to Unit One. And get Asuka suited up and into her EVA?"

"Asuka's barely conscious, Major," Sakura pointed out.

"EVA's the safest place for the Children right now, whether or not they can pilot. I want Unit Two launched into the lake as soon as Asuka's inside," Maya said.

"Yes, ma'am!"

"What's the status of Unit Zero?" Maya asked. "Can we activate it with a Dummy Plug?"

"Negative, it's still inoperable," Aoba said. "If they'd just waited a week longer, it would be a different story."

Maya narrowed her eyes. "Tell the tech crews to try and make it work. I don't care how much jury rigging it takes. If they have to use chewing gum and duct tape to hold it together, that's fine with me."

"Right," Makoto said, then began to relay the orders.

Maya then bit her lip, wondering if she should tell their forces to pull back and try flooding parts of the base with bakelite to slow the invaders. She was loathe to do that, knowing that not all the NERV personnel would be able to escape the corridors to be flooded in time, but…

Her frown suddenly deepened as she registered the absence of a certain blonde in the command center.

"Where's Dr. Akagi?" she asked.

The three top technicians paused briefly in what they were doing and looked around. Nobody had noticed her leave.

"Maybe she went to a deeper part of the base?" Aoba suggested as he got back to work. "That's sure as hell what I'd do, if my job here was done."

_Sempai wouldn't just run away,_ Maya thought. _Unless…_

The Operations Director suddenly remembered how Ritsuko had said she'd done something horrible. Maya also remembered the advice she'd Ritsuko.

_Oh no, did she go to fix whatever it is she did?_

* * *

"Wake up! Wake up!"

Shinji's eyes popped open and he found himself staring at a large orderly who was shaking him none too gently.

"I'm up, I'm up!" he groaned, wanting the shaking to stop. "What's going on?"

"The base is under attack!" the orderly barked, which immediately caused the remaining cobwebs to be swept from Shinji's brain. "You've been ordered to get to your EVA!"

"Attack? Is it another Angel?" Misao asked, also quite awake now. "And why are you taking Asuka?" she added, noticing that two other orderlies were picking up the redhead's form and carrying her out.

"No Angel. The JSSDF. And they're taking the Second Child to her EVA," the orderly explained in great agitation. "Now get going! They're invading the base! There's not much time!"

"All right! All right!" Shinji said, relenting as Misao quickly got off his lap.

"Come on, Shinji!" Misao said, grabbing his hand and leading him out of the hospital room.

Shinji allowed himself to be led, feeling overwhelmed with what was happening. The Third Child couldn't believe that _humans_ were attacking them now, and the idea of having to kill people made him feel queasy, especially after what he'd had to do to Kaworu.

But, once again, there was no choice. He had to fight.

The Third Child quickened his pace and pulled next to his girlfriend, rather than following behind her.

"We have to head straight to the cage," Misao said. "If the base really is being overrun, there's no time to change."

"Could the JSSDF actually move that fast?" Shinji wondered. "The attack couldn't have started too long ago if they just came for me now."

"NERV security isn't meant to stop a full scale invasion," Misao replied, "especially not one by an elite force like the JSSDF! We have to move!"

She picked up her pace, and Shinji was forced to do so along with her. "Oh come on, with just the size of the base—"

They suddenly rounded a corner _just_ in time to witness a group of JSSDF soldiers in black body armor open fire on a squad of NERV security personnel. For an instant, Shinji just stood at the end of the hallway and gaped stupidly as the NERV men were cruelly gunned down by the JSSDF soldiers, the few shots the security personnel managed to fire bouncing off their body armor like BB's.

He might have stood there, stunned, until the soldiers spotted him and pumped _him_ full of lead as well, but Misao pulled him roughly back around the corner they'd come after only an instant.

"This way," she said, leading him down a different hallway.

"Are you sure we can get to Unit One this way?" Shinji asked as he ran alongside her.

"No," Misao answered bluntly, "but it's a hell of a lot better than going _that_ way."

Shinji decided that he couldn't argue with that logic, and when she sped up, he did, too. However, while avoiding the men with guns who were trying to kill them was indisputably a sound course of action, it didn't get them to the cage where Unit One was currently berthed any more quickly. The two soon found themselves hopelessly lost, running around parts of the base that neither had ever lain eyes upon befor.

Finally, the knowledge that the JSSDF forces were probably encroaching more deeply into headquarters with each passing second became too much for Misao. The Fourth Child took out her cell phone and began to dial the command center.

"What are you doing?" Shinji asked when she took out her phone. "Isn't there a chance they'll be able to find us if you make a call with that?"

"Yes, but if we just keep wandering around aimlessly they're going to find us eventually anyway," Misao said as she put the phone to her ear.

_Damn, but I'd feel a whole hell of a lot better if I had a gun right now,_ she thought as the phone rang.

"Hello?" a very stressed sounding Makoto answered a moment later.

"Hyuga, it's me, Misao," she said. "Me and Shinji had a run in with the JSSDF. We got away, but now we're lost. We need you to tell us how to get to Unit One from here."

"Where are you?" Makoto asked.

"Uh, there's a sign on the wall that says J-26," Misao volunteered, hoping she didn't sound as clueless as she felt.

"J-26?" Makoto echoed in disbelief. "How in the world did you wind up there?"

"I don't know!" Misao snapped. "Is there a clear path to Unit One or not?"

There was a pause, and Misao strongly suspected that Makoto was checking maps or the base schematics. "Yes," he answered at last, "but it's anything but straight, and you'll have to hurry."

"Guide me," Misao commanded.

"Go to the end of the hallway you're in now and take a left," Makoto instructed.

"Right," Misao said. She gestured for Shinji to follow and took off. "Did they manage to get Asuka to Unit Two?"

"Yes," Makoto replied. "The guys sent to bring her to it didn't take quite the detour that you two did. She's inside Unit Two, and Unit Two's inside the lake."

"Good," Misao said, nodding in approval. "Where's Rei?"

"We have no idea," Makoto answered with a sigh. "She just vanished from her room right before all this started. We're still looking for her, but we've found nothing."

"Wonderful," Misao groaned.

* * *

Seventy meters below the surface of the lake in the Geofront, Asuka started into full wakefulness as the sound of a particularly large explosion from above managed to reach her ears.

The redhead curled herself up into a fetal position, whimpering softly. She wasn't fully aware of what was happening—the former Second Child had been in a twilight state between consciousness and unconsciousness for what felt like a very long time and hadn't been exactly perceptive as a result—but she knew enough to realize that the enemies were at the gates.

Their enemies were there, and the once Great Asuka Langley Soryu was useless and helpless.

Another explosion sounded, and Unit Two actually shook slightly from the force of the blast. Asuka curled herself more tightly into a ball.

She shouldn't want to continue to live. She was worthless. She deserved to be killed. But…

"I don't want to die," she whispered.

_You mustn't die!_

Asuka blinked, then looked around the dark entry plug wildly, searching for the source of that tiny whisper.

She saw nothing out of the ordinary, of course, and her thoughts inevitably went back to what she'd experienced while trapped inside the Twelfth Angel, and to what Rei had said to her about EVA, not too long ago.

_Could she really be in here?_ Asuka wondered.

The redhead looked around once more, and, once again finding nothing, she concentrated on touching the EVA's mind with her own, despite the red giant's dormant state.

"Mama?" she whispered.

* * *

Outside in the Geofront, everything was as orderly as war could ever be. The JSSDF forces were tearing apart NERV with little resistance, the last defenders of mankind showing that they apparently weren't very good at defending themselves _against_ mankind.

In the command tent that had been set up a safe distance from the NERV pyramid, Lieutenant Colonel Iwanaga hung up a phone after completing a call with one of the field officers.

"They've secured the blue EVA," he reported to one of the generals present. "They're approaching the purple one."

General Tachiki nodded. "And the red one—"

Before he could complete the sentence, a massive column of purple light rose from the surface of the Geofront's lake, sprouting arms near the top to become an enormous cross. It nearly reached all the way to the ceiling of the Geofront.

"Holy hell," Iwanaga breathed. "What…?"

General Tachiki nodded in satisfaction. "It means that the depth charges must have worked."

No sooner had this statement left his lips than was he proved wrong by the sound of deep, reverberating growl. The eyes of every single soldier in the Geofront, from the highest officer to the lowest noncom were immediately drawn straight to the lake.

"Oh my god…" Iwanaga breathed as something began to emerge from beneath the surface of the water.

It was Unit Two, rising up and holding the huge frigate that NERV kept in the lake above its head. It was a Goliath covered in red plate armor, coming forth to take vengeance on the puny mortals that had so foolish tried to slay the giant while it slept.

"What the hell are all of you waiting for!" General Tachiki screamed into a walkie-talkie, breaking the terrified silence that had consumed the JSSDF soldiers. "Open fire! Open fire!"

A line of artillery pieces stationed by the far side of the lake were the first ones to respond, launching their ordnance in a cacophony of noise that was deafening in the unnatural silence that had descended.

Unit Two shifted the frigate it held slightly, using it as the world's largest shield. Fireballs erupted atop its deck, and the prow of the ship began to break off from the rest of the craft, but Unit Two was unscathed.

With a grunt of effort, Asuka hurled the warship at the artillery pieces before they could ready another barrage, sending hundreds of tons of steel flying through the air. The men manning the great weapons never had a chance as the ship came crashing down on top of them, the impact immediately detonating all the nearby ammunition and causing a burst of flame large enough to bathe the Geofront in orange light to bloom.

"Holy shit," Iwanaga swore softly but vehemently. "I thought intelligence said that the Second Child couldn't pilot anymore."

"I guess she's back in action," General Tachiki replied grimly.

* * *

"That loathsome Evangelion," SEELE-09 growled, venom in his voice.

"Once again our plans will go unrealized," SEELE-01 said. "It seems we'll have to fight fire with fire."

* * *

"I can't believe that we're actually using these emergency access tunnels," Misao grumbled as she and Shinji descended a metallic ladder. "I never even thought I'd see the inside of one of these things!"

"I guess we should just consider ourselves lucky that they're here," Shinji replied from a few rungs below her.

"I guess," Misao agreed.

"What's after this?" Shinji asked, more to make conversation than anything else.

"A hallway that's partially flooded with bakelite," Misao replied. "We'll have to be careful in there not to get stuck if any of that stuff hasn't set yet. We should be able to reach a lift that'll take us to Unit One after that."

"Right," Shinji replied.

Silence fell after that, and for a few moments the two continued to climb down the ladder in the dark, cramped tunnel in silence.

"Hey, Shin-chan?" Misao spoke up in a faux whisper.

"What?" he replied, concentrating on not missing a step and falling down to the bottom of the shaft.

"Are you looking up my dress?"

"_What?!_" Shinji squawked.

"Seriously," Misao said, in voice which was anything but. "You've got a rather good vantage point for it."

Shinji wasn't sure what he found harder to believe. That Misao could suggest, even in jest, that he could possibly be thinking about sex at the moment, or that she could actually be joking right now.

"Why would I look up your dress?" he found himself saying, instead of giving voice to his incredulousness. "I sleep with you; I don't need to steal looks up your dress."

"Oh, so if another pretty girl you weren't sleeping with was above you, you'd look up her dress?" Misao teased.

Shinji sighed. "You're crazy sometimes, you know that?"

"And you love me," Misao replied without missing a beat, "so what does that say about you?"

At a loss for a reply to that one, Shinji just shook his head, grudgingly admitting to himself that he felt a little less tense after that exchange.

A few minutes later, the two of them reached the bottom of the shaft. "Finally," Shinji said, as he got to work opening the hatch.

"You know you wish that ladder was longer so you could keep looking up my skirt," Misao teased.

Shinji just rolled his eyes and finished opening the hatch, allowing him to look down to the tiled floor of the hallway below them. "No bakelite beneath us," he observed.

"Then let's go," Misao said.

Shinji nodded and jumped down, landing hard but on his feet in the hallway. Misao landed next to him a moment later, also forgoing the remaining rungs of the ladder.

"Ok," Misao said. "Now all we need to do—"

The ominous clicking sound that came from behind them made Misao stop in mid sentence. The two EVA pilots swallowed and turned, turning around and coming face to face with a pair of JSSDF soldiers. The two had apparently been pondering how to get past the only real obstacle NERV could create for them when the two pilots had practically fallen into their laps, because they were standing right by a section of the hallway that had been flooded with bakelite.

"Oh no," Misao breathed.

"Well, well, well," one of the soldiers said, raising his rifle. "Not one but two of the wonder children. Must be my birthday."

"No…" Shinji whispered, unable to believe that, after all the trials and tragedies they had gone through, it was all going to end like this.

* * *

High above Tokyo-3, nine enormous aircraft circled over the city. Each one carrying one of the most deadly weapons ever created by the hand of man.

But as was the case with many super weapons, delivery was as much an issue as devastation, and the roof of the Geofront was currently posing a problem. However, it was said that there had never been a problem that could not be fixed with the appropriate use of explosives, and this was certainly no exception.

A bomber, far smaller than the nine massive carriers, passed over the city and opened its bomb bay doors. A tactical scale N2 mine fell out and went plummeting toward the ground below.

* * *

"Sorry, kids, but you're priority one," one of the soldiers said, though the grin on his face made it obvious that he wasn't sorry at all. "Can't have you getting away."

"Damn it, don't you realize that this is wrong?" Misao asked, her voice full of desperate fury.

The soldier just chuckled, and slowly began to put pressure on the trigger of his rifle, as if savoring the moment.

Suddenly, the entire base shook violently. The two soldiers let out small cries of surprise. Shinji, who'd been standing rigid as he waited for the end, went sprawling to the floor almost instantly, landing hard on his back.

Misao and both the soldiers, however, did not fall, but all three did lose their balance. The Fourth Child, not wearing dozens of pounds of body armor like the JSSDF soldiers, recovered her footing first. The moment she felt stable again, she took the brief opportunity that was offered to her without hesitation, lashing out with her leg and knocking the two men's legs out from under them. The pair of soldiers both fell backwards, landing in the partly dry bakelite with a loud _splat!_

Shinji sprang back to his feet, and cast a shocked look at the two men, who were attempting futilely to get up out of the red gunk they'd fallen into.

"There's no point in struggling, gentlemen," Misao said, looking down at the two soldiers smugly. "The only reason that stuff wasn't completely dry already is because it was a little too cold, but your body heat is fixing _that_ problem."

The two soldiers groaned, already trying to figure out what they'd tell their CO when they finally got out of this mess.

Misao eyed the two rifles that they'd dropped for a moment but ultimately decided against taking one. They both probably had enough bakelite on them to make using them impractical at best. Besides, the things were huge, and she wasn't at all sure she could handle the recoil in her fourteen-year-old body.

"Come on," she said at last, "we're almost there."

Shinji nodded, and the two took off down the bakelite-free part of the hallway, soon arriving at the promised lift. Shinji stabbed the button to call the car…and nothing happened.

"_Shit_," Misao said as she examined it. "The power's been cut."

* * *

A tiny, largely ignored part of Asuka's mind was shocked that this was happening. Mere minutes ago, she had been a pathetic, quivering wreck, but now she was back. She was back, and Mama was back as well.

The rest of her was just reveling in the experience, not bothering to contemplate it at all.

The nine white Evangelions that had come through the hole in the Geofront's roof didn't stand a chance, she thought, a feral grin appearing on her face.

Her eyes flicked over to the countdown timer for her internal battery. The JSSDF forces had managed to destroy her umbilical cable shortly before the N2 had gone off, and she had exactly three minute and twenty seconds left.

"Plenty of time!" Asuka proclaimed as she pressed her control yokes forward, sending Unit Two into a sprint.

The MP EVA that she chose as her first target never had a chance to react. Asuka sent Unit Two leaping into the air and jammed her EVA's armored hands into the harpy's mouth, subjecting it to the incredible amount of momentum she'd built up. The white EVA's head practically _exploded_ beneath the pressure, disappearing into a geyser of blood. Unit Two then slammed down onto the ground, landing on hands and feet, its weight tearing up the unfortunate patch of ground it handed upon. The decapitated EVA fell backwards and landed rather pathetically next to Unit Two.

Another of the MP EVA's dared to approach her. With a fierce roar, Asuka brought her Unit Two back to its feet and threw her Evangelion at the enemy EVA, tackling it. Both EVA's fell into the lake, creating a massive splash. The titans were both soon completely submerged, and Unit Two was still in B-type equipment. It should have been nearly helpless underwater, much like it had been during the battle against the Sixth Angel.

But such concerns were trivial when Mama was helping her. Moving as if it wasn't in water at all, Unit Two grabbed hold of its progressive knife and slashed at the enemy EVA's, cutting a clean vertical line down the middle of its head. Blue blood gushed out into the lake, clouding the water and momentarily blinding Asuka, but she didn't need to see it to know that it had died. She could feel that its struggles had ceased.

Unit Two stood, rising out of the lake and walking onto the shore. A proximity warning suddenly went off, and Asuka turned to see one of the MP EVA's soaring through the air toward her.

With reflexes bred from a decade of combat training, Asuka moved Unit Two, grabbing the white EVA by an arm and a leg, seeming to pluck it out of the sky with ease. The Second Child adjusted her grip and pulled hard.

The MP EVA was torn in half, a river of blood bursting from its ruined body and cascading over Unit Two. The Second Child laughed as red streams poured down over her display.

_Damn, but it's good to be back!_ She thought as she discarded the two halves of the corpse and went in search of her next victim.

* * *

"Come on, Hyuga, we don't have much time!" Misao urged, holding her cell phone with one hand and repeatedly stabbing the button for the lift with the other.

"I know! Give me a minute!" Makoto replied. "The enemy's reached the command center, and I'm working with a laptop I jury rigged into my console here! Plus the bastards have torn out half the wiring in this place!"

"I don't need excuses, just do it!" Misao snapped, momentarily forgetting that she wasn't an officer anymore.

For a few, agonizing seconds, Makoto didn't say anything, and the only way Misao even knew he was still alive was because she could just hear the sound of him typing frantically over the phone.

"Got it!" Makoto finally exclaimed triumphantly, just as Misao and Shinji were able to hear the elevator car moving. "I managed to reroute power to the lift!"

"Yes!" Misao cheered. "You're the best, Hyuga!"

"You've got to hurry," Makoto said. "Asuka's fighting the EVA Series, and she's nearly out of power."

"Asuka's awake?" Misao gasped, just as the lift car arrived.

If Makoto answered, Misao didn't hear it. Instead she heard a clattering sound, followed by gunfire. Misao winced and put her phone away, even as she and Shinji stepped inside the lift, the latter pressing the button to take them to the cage.

"Asuka's okay?" Shinji asked as the car began to descend.

"And fighting," Misao replied. "But her battery's almost drained. If we don't get out there soon, she's done for. Also…they've sent the Mass Produced EVA Series against us. There are nine production model Evangelions out there."

Shinji paled at this news, but then forced a weak smile. "I haven't come this far to die now," he said.

Misao grinned back at him. A few seconds later, they arrived at the cage and saw Unit One waiting silently, looking as it always had. Down in the cage, it was almost possible to believe, if only for a moment, that all hell wasn't breaking lose.

Shinji jogged across the catwalk that led to the waiting entry plug, Misao right on his feels. Opening the plug hatch, Shinji began to climb inside.

"Be careful, Misao," Shinji said. "I'll do the best I can to get the JSSDF to retreat, but—"

"What the heck?" Misao cut him off. "I'm coming with you!"

"What?! No, you're not! It's too dangerous!" Shinji insisted.

"I can't stay here," Misao argued. "This is an EVA cage. Most of the soldiers are probably heading _here_ to try and stop it from launching. There's no way I could hide or slip past them!"

Shinji hesitated for a few seconds, silently wishing that Misao had come down to the cage with him, that she'd instead found a safe place to hide. If there was a safe place within NERV headquarters.

"You're right," he said reluctantly. "Come on."

Misao climbed into the plug with Shinji, sitting on his lap. The Third Child quickly claimed the A-10 clips, knowing that without them Misao's sync ratio would be fairly low, and her chances of getting hurt would be likewise reduced.

The plug sealed and then slid smoothly into Unit One's back, the armor on the EVA's back moving to close over it.

Shinji took a deep breath as the violet giant activated, the walls of the plug showing a crazed whirl of colors before displaying the world outside the EVA.

He and Misao locked gazes and gave each other a nod.

"EVA Unit One! Launch!"

* * *

Down in Terminal Dogma, Gendo swiped his card through a reader, and the huge metal bolts that kept Heaven's Door sealed slid open, the armored door slowly swinging open to reveal the form of Lilith, crucified upon a red cross that sat on a concrete island in a lake of LCL.

"Come, Rei," Gendo said, walking forward onto the bridge that led to the Second Angel's island.

Her senses still impossibly sharp because of the drug she'd been given, the First Child saw her well before Gendo did. They were not alone with Lilith.

"Dr. Akagi," Gendo spoke as he and Rei stepped onto the island. "I hadn't expected to see you down here."

"Neither did I, not until the moment I made my choice," Ritsuko confessed. She quickly pulled a pistol out of one of her lab coat's large pockets and pointed it at the Commander. "I won't let you destroy the world."

Gendo lips twisted upward into a small smirk. "How noble of you," he commented.

With one rapid movement, the Commander drew his own pistol from a holster hidden inside his uniform jacket. Ritsuko, who was not a soldier and had never aspired to be one, didn't react quickly enough, and suddenly found herself involved in a Mexican standoff.

"I don't have to walk away from this," Ritsuko said, hoping Gendo couldn't see her fear. "I just have to make sure that your precious scenario—"

A shot rang out, the sound of it echoing in the huge chamber. Ritsuko let out a cry as her gun was shot out of her hand, then gave Gendo a shocked look. She had no idea he was such a good shot.

She swallowed as she looked down the barrel of Gendo's still smoking pistol, stunned that he had thwarted her this easily. It seemed that the only reward she'd get for mustering her courage and trekking down here was the dubious honor of being the last person Gendo Ikari destroyed in order to get what he wanted.

"So this is it, then?" Ritsuko asked, feeling strangely numb. "You actually do win?"

"Indeed," Gendo replied casually.

The sound of gunfire echoed across the chamber again.

* * *

Author's Notes: Cliffhangers everywhere! I hope you all enjoyed this slightly belated Christmas present, dear readers, and I'm sorry it took this long to get it written and posted. This chapter did not come easily, and the usual craziness of the holidays didn't help. I'll try and get the next chapter out more quickly.

Anyway, this resembles canon EoE part one pretty closely in several places, I know, but I can assure you that events will diverge significantly next chapter. I'll make all this build up worth it, I swear!

On a mostly unrelated subject, does anyone else think it's the most unintentionally funny thing ever when in EoE, just before Misato pushes Shinji into the elevator that'll take him to Unit One, she tells him that if he doesn't like feeling pain he should just "sit there and let them kill you"? I mean, really, what does she think he was doing when she showed up, blew away the JSSDF guys, and then literally dragged his sorry ass to the EVA cage?

Wandering Soul of 1014, my next story is going to be a crossover between NGE and another anime. I won't reveal any more than that.

GabrielBell, no psycho-analysis chapters, I'm afraid. Those episodes were good for getting a look into the characters' heads, but far from great at providing closure for the series and pretty bad as entertainment. Besides, I generally don't like doing the head trips much.

zOMG, wow, quite the insightful review. First, I admit that I really don't know about the methods of knocking a person instantly unconscious, nor the ramifications of using those methods. Perhaps it's not entirely realistic, but this _is_ set in an anime where giant robots battle giant monsters, and where people will spontaneously turn into orange goo if their mystical energy fields are removed, after all. Secondly, I do believe Shinji would consider Kaworu his friend. He was lonely when the last Angel found him, albeit not nearly as lonely as he was in canon. Also, it's not that hard to get Shinji to consider you a friend. He did, after all, end up being best buds with a guy who socked him in the face when they first met. Third, keep in mind how far Shinji is willing to go to prevent a human life from ending by his hands. He would rather die than murder. I think his willingness to kill Kaworu even though he has an out shows just committed he is to protecting Misao, hesitation or not.

All right, that's enough of the heavy stuff. As always, thanks to my readers and reviewers. Happy holidays to all of you. Now for some fun.

* * *

Omakes!

Always Get Those Two Mixed Up…

Inside the syringe was a concoction that consisted of LCL, over a dozen different hormones (not all of which were naturally found in humans), and various other chemicals.

Gendo carefully positioned the needle, then plunged it deep into her. His aim was true, and the tip of it soon penetrated her S2 organ.

The remarkable regenerative abilities of the Angels were suddenly Rei Ayanami's. The horrific burns that marred almost every centimeter of her skin faded away in seconds, and the First Child released a small gasp as she regained consciousness, her crimson eyes popping open abruptly.

"Rei, get dressed and come with me," Gendo ordered gruffly. "It's time."

Rei giggled.

Gendo blinked. "Rei?"

"I can see forever," Rei whispered in a reverent tone of voice.

"What?!" Gendo demanded, frowning.

"The colors, G-man! The colors!" Rei breathed.

Gendo sweat dropped. The Supreme Commander of NERV had never been called "G-man" before.

"Rei…"

"I think I can fly!" Rei exclaimed, jumping to her feet and then taking a swan dive off her bed.

The First Child landed hard on the floor, quite unable to fly, but she seemed to feel no pain from the fall. She giggled again. "Radical!"

Gendo sighed, examining the syringe closely. "Damn it, I must have confused LCL and LSD again…"

* * *

Obligatory Christmas Omake

"I'm not so sure this is a good idea, Misato," Asuka commented, even as she continued to hang tinsel around the apartment. "The baka's not exactly the holiday type, and I kind of doubt he's Christian, anyway…"

"That's why we're celebrating the fun version of Christmas!" Misato called from the kitchen, where she was preparing eggnog that was about 90 percent booze.

"The fun version?" Asuka blinked, pausing in her work.

"Yeah, the commercialized version, as opposed to the religious version!" Misato explained.

Asuka rolled her eyes. "Such a good Christian girl you are…" she muttered sarcastically.

"What?"

"Nothing!" Asuka called back. "Couldn't you have at least gotten a star for the tree, instead of that _thing_?"

"I'll have you know that 'thing' is a Katsuragi family heirloom!" Misato retorted. "Now, Asuka, don't ruin the holidays for us! Shinji really needs this, I think! He's way too high strung lately!"

"That I'll agree with," Asuka said. "He hasn't been quite right since he got changed into LCL and back."

Before Misato could reply, Shinji happened to walk into the apartment. "Hello, Misato," he greeted her softly, taking in the red sweater she was wearing with its faux, white fur trim. "That's an…interesting sweater."

Misato grinned. "It's for the holidays, Shinji-kun," she said. "Asuka's in the living room decorating. Why don't you give her a hand?"

"All right," Shinji said, venturing deeper into the apartment.

"Hello, baka," Asuka greeted. "Would you—?"

"ANGEL!" Shinji shrieked, plowing into the tree and knocking it over and destroying almost every ornament on it _except_ the glass angel which sat at the top.

"What the hell?!" Misato exclaimed, rushing out into the living room to see Shinji wrestling with a tree, a fight he was somehow losing.

"Told you this was a bad idea," Asuka grumbled.

Pen-Pen, meanwhile, waddled over and scooped up several candy canes, which had been on branches far too high for him to reach before Shinji had knocked over the tree. He looked at the less than stable boy.

_Still my favorite resident human,_ Pen-Pen thought fondly before he headed off for his fridge.

(A/N: No horny mini-Gendo Shinji today, but you'll be seeing plenty of him in the omakes of next chapter, I can promise you that.)


	21. Chapter 21

* * *

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-One: **Final Conflict/The End and the Beginning**

Battle rage. Battle frenzy. Berserk fury.

A psychologist would probably describe what Asuka was experiencing at the moment using one of those terms, but the Second Child frankly didn't give a damn exactly what it was she was feeling.

Because whatever it was, it was _awesome._

Asuka had broken Unit Two's progressive knife some time ago, but the Second Child wasn't feeling much of a sense of loss, seeing as how she'd upgraded to one of the huge blades that the white Evangelions had brought with them.

"Ragh!" the Second Child let out a wordless scream of rage, bringing down the blade on one of the MP EVA's, slicing it from shoulder to crotch with a single slash, and sending a cascade of blood down to the ground below.

She was already searching for her next target before the corpse of her latest kill hit the ground, and it was a good thing, too. One of the few white EVA's still standing had managed to make its way toward her Unit Two with surprising stealth and was already poised to strike. Asuka barely had time to react before the huge melee weapon was heading straight for her precious EVA.

With a grunt, she brought up her own blade to block the blow, and the sound of metal striking metal rang throughout the entire Geofront as the two weapons connected. Asuka grimaced slightly, feeling the impact of the blow in her own arms through her connection with EVA.

The white EVA pulled its sword back and struck again, and again Asuka blocked. The MP EVA pushed hard against her weapon, its horrible, eye-less face grinning at her, as if it knew that it didn't need to win to beat her; it only needed to run out the clock until her internal battery died.

Asuka responded by commanding Unit Two's right shoulder pylon to open, revealing the EVA's deadly spike launcher.

The MP EVA she'd been fighting with staggered backwards as a number of great metal poles which were as thick as tree trunks and had been sharpened to lethal points on either end embedded themselves in its head. The harpy wavered on its feet for a second before it collapsed to the ground, motionless.

Asuka allowed herself a moment to wonder why she hadn't used that feature more often before she cast her gaze out, searching for more victims.

Only two of the EVA Series remained, which was fortunate, since Unit Two's battery was nearing depletion. Casting aside the heavy, bulky sword she'd commandeered, Asuka threw Unit Two into a full sprint, determined to slay every last one of her enemies in this final battle.

"These are the last ones!" she roared.

The Second Child never did notice that one of the previously defeated EVA Units was slowly getting to its feet, one of its hands reaching out toward the huge sword it had dropped when Asuka had slain it the first time.

* * *

Rei could have stopped the bullet.

In her current state, stopping the bullet would have been easy, in fact. Mere child's play. To her crimson eyes, it moved as if in slow motion, so much so that it seemed like she could have plucked it out of the air with her bare hands. Not that she would do so; she would have used her AT field, something she would have had no difficulty with, either.

However, the First Child chose not to interfere with the course of the deadly little metal projectile, and it slammed right into its intended target's chest.

Gendo gasped and staggered back a step, his face suddenly almost as pale as Rei's. The gun he'd been about to shoot Ritsuko with fell from his suddenly limp hand and clattered onto the concrete floor.

Almost as one, both Gendo and Ritsuko turned to see Maya Ibuki standing near the end of the long bridge that led to Lilith's island, holding a smoking pistol in both of her suddenly shaking hands. Neither of them had even noticed her arrival; they'd been too fixated upon their confrontation with one another.

Gendo's eyes widened as he took in the sight of the woman who had shot him—his "acceptable stopgap" for the position of Operations Director after Misato's transformation.

He then turned his head to regard Rei, and in the brief moment that their eyes met, Rei _knew_ that he knew she could have saved him. She felt shame stab into her despite herself.

Then Gendo took one last, shuddering breath and collapsed to the ground, unmoving. A large, red puddle quickly formed beneath him.

"Oh my god," Maya breathed, dropping the gun she held and sinking to her knees. "Oh my god…"

The brunette turned her head and vomited into the lake of LCL, her whole body shuddering with the horror at the act she'd just committed.

"What have I done?" she whispered, tears starting to run down her eyes.

"You saved the world," Ritsuko replied, picking up Gendo's gun and pointing it at his hand.

_It should really be Misato doing this,_ Ritsuko thought. _But destroying something as dangerous as Adam later rather than sooner would be the absolute height of idiocy._

She squeezed the trigger again and again, firing point blank at Gendo's hand and the Angel grafted into it. By the time the pistol clicked empty, nothing remained of the appendage and its "passenger" save for scattered bits of bloody flesh and chips of bone.

Carelessly dropping the now spent weapon to floor, Ritsuko went over to her former protégé, who was still on her knees. The blonde rubbed Maya's shoulders gently, trying to coax her out of her guilt and misery.

"Maya, I know you never wanted to have to kill anyone, but you have to understand that Gendo Ikari was a monster," Ritsuko said. "He had a hand in Second Impact. He planned to start a Third Impact. Killing him was like…it was as if you had killed Hitler. It's not something you need to feel ashamed about."

"Then why do I feel so horrible?" Maya moaned.

Ritsuko couldn't help but smiling slightly. "Because you're Maya," she answered, as if this explained everything, because to the two of them, it did.

Rei, meanwhile, was looking down at Gendo Ikari's body. The man had created her, sheltered her, and raised her. He had, in essence, been her father. Granted, he had been a terrible father to her, but Rei hadn't even begun to realize this until near the end. She had felt genuine affection for him and was sad to have seen him die.

However, his continued survival would have assured the deaths of Shinji and Misao, two people who, unlike Gendo, had gotten close to Rei and cared about her simply because they had wanted to.

Gendo Ikari had never asked her to refrain from reckless actions in battle, but Shinji had, stating that she could not be replaced well enough for him after the battle against the Fourteenth Angel. To Gendo, any one Rei had always been expendable.

Gendo Ikari had stuck her in a rat infested, condemned building in order to keep her as isolated from others as much as possible. Misao had invited Rei to live with her and Shinji in their home.

So she had allowed Gendo to die, in exchange for the chance that her friends would live.

_I will not mourn you,_ Rei decided, looking away from Gendo's corpse.

By this point, the shaking brunette had stilled somewhat, which Ritsuko took as a positive indication. "How did you get down here, anyway?" the blonde asked. "For that matter, how did you even know how to come down here? And _why_ did you?"

Maya looked up, wiping her mouth with her hand before giving Ritsuko a weak smile. "Once I'd realized you'd left, I was able to use the base's surveillance videos to track where you'd gone, at least until it was obvious you were heading for Terminal Dogma. After that, I pulled up a schematic of the base's ventilation system and used that to get here. I figured if the Children could get around using those things, then I probably could. I'm not that much bigger than they are, after all."

"You managed to get all that information out of the MAGI during a level one alert? I must have taught you even better than I'd thought," Ritsuko said, impressed with the both of them. Then she seemed to remember herself and added in an almost angry voice, "My god! What were you thinking? You could have been killed coming here!"

Maya shook her head. "None of the soldiers ever had even a clue I was in there," she said. "I guess that crawling through air ducts is too James Bond for them to believe anyone would actually try it, or something."

"All right, but that doesn't explain _why_ you decided to venture down here," Ritsuko said. "Not that I'm not grateful, mind you, but…"

"After I finally gave the order to flood the corridors with bakelite, there wasn't much else I could do on the bridge," Maya said. "And, well, I couldn't let you go off and face whatever it was down here in Terminal Dogma alone. I saw you take the gun on the surveillance video. I couldn't just let you die. Sempai…Ritsuko, I l—"

Ritsuko put a finger to her former protégé's lips, silencing her. "This…isn't the time for that," she said. "Just because Ikari's dead, doesn't mean that today's ordeals are over."

In truth, Ritsuko had simply stopped her because she had _no idea_ how to respond to the proclamation she was fairly sure Maya was about to make. In the days before Misato had been transformed into a teenager, she had teased Ritsuko about Maya having a "crush" on her fairly frequently, but Ritsuko had never for a moment believed it. This came very much out of nowhere for her.

"Dr. Akagi is correct," Rei stated, finally walking away from Gendo's rapidly cooling corpse. "Please, come with me. It is possible that I may need your assistance."

"Where are you going?" Ritsuko demanded, even as Rei began to stride back across the bridge toward Heaven's Door.

"To join the battle," Rei said simply.

Ritsuko's eyes narrowed. There was something not quite right about Rei. This wasn't how a newly activated clone should behave.

"Which one are you?" she asked.

It was a pretty ambiguous question, but Rei knew exactly what the faux blonde meant. "I am still the second," she answered with just the tiniest touch of pride in her voice.

"How is that possible?" Ritsuko demanded.

"Commander Ikari utilized some kind of serum to fully activate my S2 organ," Rei explained.

Ritsuko frowned in confusion for a moment, then her eyes widened. "Jesus," she gasped, "he used _that_? Rei, NERV abandoned trying to make that stuff work a long time ago! It kept instantly killing the test subjects! Which were clones of you!"

"Obviously, he must have improved upon the formula," Rei stated, not stopping her trek across the bridge.

"But he couldn't have perfected it, not working by himself!" Ritsuko protested. "The possible side effects—"

"Are irrelevant," Rei cut her off. "I cannot remain here and do nothing while my friends fight for their lives."

"You can't go topside!" Ritsuko argued. "There's no telling when that crap he gave you will wear off, or what will happen when it does! Remember, he only needed you functional until about, oh…_now_! He wouldn't care about anything that would happen later."

"I will take the risk of it wearing off during combat," Rei said softly.

"Wait a moment," Maya said. "Rei, Unit Zero isn't working. The repairs weren't done, and the JSSDF got to the cage and used bakelite on it before the tech crews could even try jury rigging it."

Rei actually smiled in response, and Maya shivered and tried to convince herself that the First Child's eyes weren't really glowing and her imagination was just running away with her. She didn't succeed.

"I can make it work," Rei said.

* * *

Shinji's reaction times and reflexes had never been great. They weren't terrible, either, more average than anything else, making them two of the many, many factors that had caused Asuka to be the far superior pilot, at least on paper.

Fortunately, the mass quantities of adrenaline pumping through his system must have granted Shinji a boost. When Unit One emerged in the Geofront and the first thing he saw was a Mass Produced Evangelion about to fling one of its massive blades at Unit Two, he didn't hesitate for an instant. He _moved._

Unit One tore out of the heavy restraints holding its feet to the sled as though they were paper, breaking out into a full sprint. Its towering legs devoured the distance between the test type and the MP model, and the violet colossus tackled the white harpy, crashing into it with an ungodly amount of force. The great war machines crashed to the ground, with Unit One atop the MP EVA.

With a growl that was echoed by his EVA, Shinji brought Unit One's fist back and slammed it into the harpy's head with all the strength he could muster. The MP EVA's skull shattered into a million pieces beneath the force of the impact, Unit One effectively decapitating it.

Breathing a short sigh of relief, Shinji brought his EVA back to its feet, unconsciously causing its blood stained hand to clench and unclench as he did so. Unit Two, he saw, had apparently deactivated, but not before slaying two more of the MP EVA's.

Bringing Unit One over to its currently dormant comrade, Shinji ejected his umbilical cable with a mental command. He was pleased when he saw that the countdown for the internal battery wasn't starting, meaning that Unit One's S2 organ was working properly. He grabbed the plug and inserted it into the back of Unit Two, which lurched slightly before reactivating.

Unsurprisingly, a box labeled "FROM EVA-02" appeared on Shinji's display.

"Hey, Third…and Fourth. It was nice of you to stop by, but I think you're a little late for the party," Asuka said triumphantly, genuinely unaware of the fact that Unit One had prevented her from getting stabbed in the eye.

Misao smirked. "Nice to see you up and about, Asuka," she commented.

"Yeah," Shinji agreed, "unfortunately, I don't think the party's over quite yet…"

Asuka frowned. "What the hell do you mean?" she demanded.

"Look," Shinji said, gesturing with Unit One's hand at the forms of many of the MP EVA's that Asuka had felled earlier.

The Second Child's eyes widened as she saw what Shinji had seen. The harpies, many of them horrifically mutilated, were stirring and getting back up, looking eager to rejoin the battle.

"Mein _Gott_," Asuka swore, "that's impossible!"

"Impossible or not, it's happening," Misao said grimly. "Up for causing a little more carnage, Asuka?"  
Asuka grinned wickedly, then pushed down on her control yokes, sending Unit Two in a full out sprint, heading straight toward one of the Mass Produced EVA Units. Just as it approached its foe, Unit Two halted, striking out with one leg in a kick that had all the momentum the red EVA had built up behind it. Unit Two's size five hundred foot slammed into the white EVA's chest, forming a deep bloody crater in it and sending the harpy soaring across the Geofront.

"That answer your question?" the Second Child asked.

* * *

While battle still raged in several parts of the base, such as the command center and the lower floors of Central Dogma, most of NERV headquarters had been taken by the JSSDF, and a relative calm had descended. Of course, that didn't mean the halls were devoid of JSSDF soldiers; there were men patrolling the area and searching for any NERV personnel who had managed to evade them during the first wave.

Fortunately, none of them were equipped to deal with an EVA pilot wielding Angelic powers, and the soldiers had barely been able to slow down Rei, Ritsuko, and Maya as the three headed toward Unit Zero.

Currently, the trio stood outside the main doors to EVA Cage 2, and only a pair of soldiers separated them from their goal.

"It's one of the pilots!" one of the soldiers shouted as they came into view. "Shoot her!"

The two men raised their rifles and squeezed the triggers, sending a hail of bullets toward Rei and her companions. Said bullets were deflected harmlessly by a shield of orange light.

The JSSDF soldiers stopped shooting after it became clear that their assault was ineffective. The two stared at Rei, suddenly fearful.

There was a flash of orange light, bright enough to dazzle Ritsuko's and Maya's eyes. When they blinked away the spots, they saw the two JSSDF men laying on the floor. Only the soft, low groans of pain they were emitting showed that they were still alive.

The scientist and the Ops Director traded a brief look. This was not the first such display of power they'd seen Rei perform, but each one unnerved them regardless.

The door to the cage opened obediently before Rei, and she strode inside, with Ritsuko and Maya following closely behind.

"Seal the doors," Ritsuko ordered Maya. "Use the bakelite suppression system to make sure that nobody can get in here without high explosives."

Deciding not to point out that the JSSDF doubtlessly had demolitions experts who were carrying high explosives, Maya quickly went into the cage's small control room and got to the task.

Ritsuko turned to regard Unit Zero. The prototype Evangelion had been doused in bakelite, as she'd known it would be. The JSSDF had made a quick and dirty job of it, not evening coming close to really covering all of the blue giant in the red substance. However, they'd effectively made it impossible for a pilot to get to it.

Rei didn't seem the least bit deterred by this sight. "The restraints must be removed," she said.

Ritsuko frowned slightly, then gave a mental shrug. The restraints had also been smeared with bakelite, and they couldn't be automatically removed from the cage during a level one alert anyway. None of that meant that she couldn't manually cut the hydraulic pressure, though.

The faux blonde smashed the glass on a nearby box on the wall and removed the fire axe within, then went to work on the hydraulic fluid lines. She finished up just as Maya completed her own task and came over to join her.

"All right, Rei," Akagi said. "We've done everything we can. The rest is up to you."

Rei nodded and walked onto the little bridge that went right in front of the EVA's face. "You may wish to stand back," she said.

Ritsuko and Maya wisely withdrew toward a corner of the massive chamber.

Rei looked right into the single eye of her Evangelion. "Awaken," she commanded.

The head of Unit Zero abruptly rose, its cyclopean eye lightning up. Pieces of bakelite cracked and shattered as the EVA moved, falling off the giant and plummeting into the depths of the cage. The EVA began to growl, and Ritsuko and Maya unconsciously clutched onto each other in fear, all too aware that they'd locked themselves inside the cage with the beast. Only the doors for the EVA lift shaft were still operable.

"This shouldn't be possible," Maya whispered. "The repairs weren't complete."

"Maya, I don't think the EVA cares," Ritsuko said softly.

The EVA struggled out of the restraints and leaned forward. If not for its helmet, Rei would have felt its hot breath washing over her and seen its lips peel back to reveal its razor sharp teeth.

The First Child narrowed her eyes. "Obey me," she said.

The EVA released another low growl.

Rei was unfazed. "Obey me," she repeated. "Obey me one last time, then we can have nothing more to do with one another."

Unit Zero hesitated, seeming to consider the girl's offer. Then, it held one enormous hand out toward her, palm upwards. Rei stepped onto it, and the EVA carefully took her over to the back of its neck, allowing her to climb into the entry plug. Seconds later, the metal cylinder was sliding into its intended place.

"EVA Unit Zero, launch!" Rei commanded.

* * *

"This is insane!" Shinji exclaimed as he decapitated one of the MP EVA's, only to see another that he'd felled only minutes ago starting to get up again.

"War's always insane," Misao replied grimly. "I thought you knew that by now."

"I do," Shinji replied, "but this is a whole new level! At least the Angels all had the decency to stay dead after they died!"

Not far off, Unit Two had taken one of the large swords the attackers had brought with them and was literally chopping a harpy to pieces in an attempt to kill it for good this time. Asuka was shouting German profanities as she performed this grisly task with maniac fury.

The Second Child was starting to get a little frustrated. Really, the only bright spot that Shinji could see was that the EVA Series apparently lacked the brains to target her new umbilical, and the JSSDF forces weren't about to get in the middle of the brawl between the group of Evangelions.

"Gott _damn_ it!" Asuka exclaimed, as she was forced to abandon the foe she was reducing to giblets in favor of another, which was rising again. "How do you kill these damned things!"

"You must destroy the core, or the Dummy Plug."

"Huh?!" Shinji, Asuka, and Misao exclaimed as one, all three gaping at the new communications window that appeared on the displays.

Before any of them had had an opportunity to recover from the shock, a pair of doors in the ground opened and Unit Zero emerged on the surface. The prototype Evangelion's armor didn't all seem to be on quite right, and it even looked like there was a small piece of it missing here and there, giving it an almost desperate appearance.

Maybe that emboldened their enemies, because one of the MP EVA's that was currently standing and active charged Unit Zero, sword in hand.

Unit Zero raised one massive hand and then brought it down in one swift motion, well before the enemy EVA was within striking distance.

But Rei had never intended anything so crude as a simple smack. The First Child had had something far more devastating in mind: an AT assault.

The MP EVA's own AT field flashed into existence for a second, before shattering into pieces and fading away, deep slashes opening up all over the hapless EVA's body, releasing a deluge of blood. The section of armor covering its abdomen fell of entirely, revealing the red core hidden beneath. The harpy promptly tripped and fell to the ground, landing on its back and making no immediate attempt to get up.

Rei wasn't planning on giving it a chance to recover. Unit Zero squatted down, then leapt into the air toward its prone foe. Both of the blue EVA's feet crashed down onto the MP Evangelion's core, shattering the red sphere instantly.

"Whoa," Misao breathed, as the other two NERV EVA Units just stood there and watched.

"Yeah," Asuka agreed, dimly aware of the fact that she should be mad at getting upstaged by Rei, but too awed at the First Child's display for the moment to actual feel said ire.

Unit Zero picked up the sword that the now permanently dead MP EVA had dropped, seemed to test the balance of the weapon for a moment, then abruptly turned and hurled the blade with all of its considerable might.

The blade soared straight and true toward another white EVA that was just getting back to its feet. Reacting immediately to the threat, the harpy summonsed its AT field, which flashed into visibility and stopped the sword cold.

Then the weapon changed, its form suddenly becoming fluid and shifting until it wasn't a sword anymore. It was a Lance of Longinus.

The Lance immediately pushed through the white EVA's AT field as though it barely existed, impaling the great war machine in the abdomen, right where its core was located.

Two more of the Mass Produced Evangelions charged Unit Zero, approaching from opposite directions. One moment before they both tackled the blue EVA, Unit Zero leapt high straight up into the air, causing the two harpies to crash into one another instead, causing them both to fall to the ground. It was almost comical.

Of course, what goes up must inevitably come down, and Unit Zero was no exception. The blue cyclops landed atop its two foes, one huge foot landing on one of the white EVA's each.

Before either of the harpies could try and throw Unit Zero off, it again employed the offensive use of an AT field, waving a hand downward and slicing the two apart horizontally through the abdomen with a flash of orange light, cutting both cores neatly in two in the process.

With a roar, Unit Zero left its latest victims, running over to another MP EVA. To the white giant's credit, it did try to dodge to coming onslaught, but Unit Zero proved far too fast for it. The blue EVA tackled it to the ground with enough force to leave an EVA shaped crater in the earth when the harpy impacted with the ground. Rei then summonsed her progressive knife with a thought, causing her EVA's left shoulder pylon to open and reveal the weapon. She grabbed the weapon, which came to life with a joyful, deadly hum, and raised it, ready to end another of the enemy Evangelions.

And then it happened.

Unit Zero slumped forward, looking almost like it had abruptly gone to sleep, the progressive knife falling from its suddenly limp fingers to bury itself in the earth up to the hilt. The MP EVA pinned beneath it somehow looked confused despite having no eyes and a less than expressive face.

This break in the nonstop carnage that Rei and Unit Zero had been dishing out finally allowed the other EVA pilots present to recover from their respective stupors.

"Rei?" Shinji asked, opening a communication channel to the blue EVA.

The "FROM EVA-00" box opened on his display, and showed the form of Rei Ayanami, but it was obvious that something was wrong. Rei was…shaking, and her eyes had rolled back so far into her head that only the tiniest bit of her corneas could be seen.

"Oh my god, she's having a seizure!" Misao exclaimed, confusion and concern both clear in her voice.

The white EVA beneath Unit Zero had apparently realized that its foe was weak. It shoved the blue EVA off of itself, and its lips peeled back from its large teeth in a cruel, malevolent grin.

Asuka was faster on the ball than Shinji was, and threw her own EVA into motion. With a loud battle cry, she hurled her Unit Two into the harpy, tackling it from behind and throwing it off their abruptly incapacitated companion. The Second Child tore off the piece of armor covering the harpy's Dummy Plug, then ripped out the plug itself, reducing much of the surrounding hardware to scrap as she did so. Unit Two then clenched its fist, crushing the Dummy Plug like a soda can and causing amber LCL to spurt out of the destroyed container.

"Destroy the plugs or the cores, huh?" Asuka said to no one in particular. "Somebody should've told me earlier."

"What about Rei?" Shinji spoke up. "If she's having a seizure, she could…"

"We have to finish the fight," Misao said firmly, but not without remorse. "If one of us leaves to find medical help for her, we could lose the battle. Besides, there's no place for us to take her right now anyway."

Shinji nodded grimly, then gripped his control yokes. Fortunately, thanks to Rei's rampage and Asuka's recent kill, only four of the Mass Produced Evangelions remained.

_I guess we'll have to kill them fast then, _Shinji thought, narrowing his eyes.

One of the MP EVA's drew near to Unit One, one of the huge swords in hand and raised high above its head. Shinji reacted immediately, throwing his EVA to the ground in order to dodge the blade, and using its legs to trip up his enemy as he did so. The white EVA's momentum was suddenly turned against it, and it with sprawling down to the ground, landing on its face.

Quickly untangling his EVA from it, Shinji got Unit One to its knees and wrenched the sword from the still stunned beast's hands before it could collect what little it had in the way of wits. Holding the blade in both hands, Shinji brought the point down on the harpy's abdomen with as much force as he could muster.

And felt his arms ringing in sympathy with those of his EVA when the core hidden beneath the white Unit's armor withstood the titanic blow.

"Damn it," he hissed, raising the sword for a second strike.

The core was incredibly tough, even when compared to the cores of the Angels. It was no wonder that Asuka hadn't lucked out and destroyed one when she'd decided to try chopping one of the MP Evangelions to bits.

Shinji continued to rain blows down upon the white EVA, his frustration increasing with every strike that failed to penetrate his enemy's core. He knew that with every second that passed, there was a chance that Rei, in the throes of seizure, might swallow her own tongue and die. The knowledge made him frantic and gave him a desperate sort of strength, his whole world seeming to narrow until it was just him and his enemy.

Finally, after the sixth blow, the tip of the blade managed to get through the surface of the core, pushing deep into the hollow sphere. The MP EVA writhed in what was obviously intense agony. A wild, jubilant light appearing in the Third Child's eyes, and he twisted the blade.

There was an audible shattering sound, and the harpy immediately ceased its movements and was still.

"Finally," Shinji spat.

He then released a short cry as another of the white EVA's came up behind him and abruptly grabbed him in a full nelson hold.

* * *

_Go for the cores or the plugs, why didn't _I_ think of that?_ Asuka wondered, somewhat nettled despite herself that she'd needed Rei to tell her how to slay her enemies.

Asuka then gave a mental shrug and grabbed the handle of Rei's progressive knife and pulled the abandoned weapon from the ground. One of the MP EVA's dared to approach her, and she stabbed it in the chest before it could hope to react. The white EVA opened its mouth and a sick, gargling sound was heard.

The Second Child drew the knife downwards, easily cutting through armor and flesh, spurts of blood shooting out from around her commandeered weapon as it went from the chest toward the belly.

Then she hit something solid and the progress of the knife stopped. Asuka smiled, realizing that she'd hit her true target, and gripped the handle of the prog knife with both hands, applying all the pressure she could. Sparks shot up as the vibrating blade clashed with the tough, red material of the core.

Then the white EVA Unit reached up and grabbed hold of Unit Two's wrists. Asuka resisted with all of her EVA's strength, but slowly, oh so slowly, the harpy forced Unit Two's hands off the prog knife, the arms of both war machines shaking as the red titan's hands were moved further and further upwards. The MP EVA smiled up at Unit Two and Asuka with its horrible mouth.

Asuka responded by head butting the white EVA, so hard that she herself saw stars after the blow.

Badly dazed, the MP EVA's hold on Unit Two's wrists slackened, and Asuka wasted no time in exploiting the opening. The scarlet EVA pulled its arms free and again gripped the handle of the progressive knife, which was still stuck in the white Unit's torso, and gave it one more fierce pull.

The already abused core of the white EVA gave out abruptly, and Asuka's prog knife made a long slice down the front of it. It slumped down, truly dead at last.

Asuka got Unit Two back to its feet, just in time to see Unit One destroy the core of another MP EVA with one of their own swords. Only moments after this success, however, another of the white beasts came up behind Unit One and was able to grab hold of it. It had moved none too stealthily—stealth wasn't really much of an option for seventy meter tall death machines like Evangelion—but the violet colossus was still caught entirely by surprise.

Asuka shook her head. Focusing too hard on one enemy at the expense of paying attention to the rest of the battlefield was a rookie mistake. _I would have expected better of you by now, Ikari,_ she thought.

She was about to go and help him when another of the white Evangelions came charging at her. Asuka, fortunately, was no rookie; she saw it coming and sidestepped the assault—mostly. The enemy EVA somehow managed to grab hold of one of Unit Two's shoulder pylons, and it had built up enough momentum for this to force the red EVA to fall face first into the ground.

Asuka recovered almost immediately, and with a growl, got her EVA to its hands and knees and launched it upon her enemy, the two wrestling furiously on the ground, turning small forests into pulp as they rolled over and over, jockeying for position.

_Sorry, Shinji, I guess you're on your own,_ Asuka thought.

* * *

_Damn it, where the hell is Asuka?_ Shinji wondered as Unit One was jerked back and forth like a rag doll in the grip of the white EVA, the purple titan's legs having been lifted off the ground and kicking uselessly in the air.

He felt Misao clutching onto him, though whether it was in a futile attempt to steady herself, fear for him, or fear for herself, he hadn't the slightest idea.

Then the MP EVA flung Unit One, sending the test type Evangelion flying through the air. The horned giant's form spun crazily, and when it first hit the ground, it landed on its head. But the flight of EVA One wasn't finished yet; it bounced, and went tumbling into a nearby building, partially destroying it as the enormous of the Evangelion caused concrete to crumble and steel to twist.

Inside the entry plug, Shinji's head slumped forward, his eyes slid closed, and all semblance of consciousness left him.

"Shinji?" Misao spoke, as static began to appear on the entry plug's displays. "Shinji?"

She turned to see that he had passed out and grimaced. She gently cupped his cheek, hating that there was nothing she could for him at present. "You'd better be okay," she said softly.

Then she took the A-10 clips out of his hair and placed them upon her own head.

Immediately, Misao felt dizzy, and for a terrifying moment she thought that she too might black out. Her vision swam, and she blinked her eyes several times until everything was—mostly—clear. She felt fairly sure that Unit One had sustained at least a mild concussion and hoped that its own S2 organ would repair the damage soon.

She looked at the displays and saw that the white EVA that had flung Unit One into its current position was approaching. Her brow drew down and she gritted her teeth, feeling nothing but the purest hate for the monster that had hurt her Shinji. The thing might not be an Angel, but it was no less malignant for it, she knew.

With a roar, Misao threw Unit One toward the MP EVA, commanding her Evangelion to lower its head as it ran at full speed. The horn of Unit One impaled the white EVA through the chest and then erupted out its back, dripping red. Then, with a loud _snap_, the horn broke off of Unit One's helmet, and the white EVA fell to the ground.

Misao didn't give it a chance to catch its breath. She ripped the armor that covered the EVA's core away, exposing the red sphere. Then she tore the bloody horn from the harpy's chest, and began to hammer the core with it, again and again striking the heart of her foe. There was no need to worry about another of the MP EVA's attacking; Asuka, she saw from the corner of her eye, was grappling with the last of them, so she gave the attack everything she had.

A spider web of cracks formed on the red core, and Misao raised the horn high above Unit One's head, ready for the final blow.

With a cry of rage, she brought it down.

The core shattered into a million pieces, some of them the size of trucks, some of them even larger, and all of them went flying off in every direction.

Panting now, Misao drew Unit One to its full height and looked around, soon spying Unit Two, which stood over another MP EVA, its core as broken as the one Unit One had just totaled.

The "FROM EVA-02" box popped up on her display.

"Did we win?" Asuka asked, looking cautiously hopeful and unusually weary.

"This battle, yeah, I think so," Misao said, "but there's a lot more for us to do before we can put this whole day into the win column."

* * *

"The Mass Produced Evangelion Series has been destroyed," SEELE-09 reported to the rest of council, disbelief clear in his voice.

"Then the scenario is ruined," SEELE-12 said resignedly. "It is over."

"Oh ye of little faith," SEELE-01 spoke up, his voice vaguely mocking. "It is _not_ over. Not quite yet."

* * *

"Well, it looks like the idiot brigade out there isn't backing off quite yet," Asuka observed, looking out at the assembled JSSDF forces. "One of us has to finish dealing with them, and somebody's got to get Ayanami some medical attention from somewhere. Which job do you want?"

"I'll go find Rei some help," Misao said. "I'm not limited by an umbilical, and I'd like to have someone look at Shinji, too."

"He's fine I'm sure," Asuka said, "but—"

The "FROM EVA-02" box on Misao's display suddenly turned to static, and she started, then turned to look out at Unit Two. She inhaled sharply when she saw it; one of the white EVA's had gotten up and stabbed Unit Two at the base of the spine with the broken, jagged remains of its own abandoned progressive knife.

A moment later, the entry plug ejected a second later, and Misao let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

_But how?_ She wondered.

The standard schematics for an Evangelion included two cavities for a plug. One for the entry plug and one for a Dummy Plug, the idea being that if the pilot became incapacitated or insubordinate, then NERV could have the auto-pilot take over.

Of course, the Mass Produced Evangelions had no entry plugs, so SEELE had seen fit to equip them each with a second Dummy Plug.

And Asuka, acting on Rei's advice, had ripped one of the Dummy Plugs out of EVA Unit Thirteen, and then not bothered to destroy the core.

Misao, of course, didn't know all this, but she was easily able to observe that this last enemy apparently still had an intact core.

"Why can't you all just stay dead!" Misao exclaimed, even as she rounded on this last foe.

Unit One tackled the final MP EVA to the ground, and the two giants began to fight fiercely, locked in one final round of mortal combat.

After destroying several of this EVA's siblings, Misao felt pretty confident about her odds against this last one.

So naturally, Murphy's law had to kick in.

As the two titans grappled and rolled about on the ground, Unit One's head struck a huge, partially buried boulder that had been deemed too much trouble to remove when the Geofront had first been excavated. Normally, this wouldn't have done too much to either EVA or pilot, but Unit One had not yet recovered from its concussion. And thanks to her neural link with Unit One, Misao for a brief moment felt a wave of pain so sharp that it made her woozy and nauseous for the moment it lasted.

And when that moment ended, Misao found that Unit One was pinned to the ground, and Unit Thirteen had its hands wrapped around her EVA's neck.

She immediately reached up and tried to throw its arms off of her, but its grip was as iron, and she couldn't so much as budge its hands. Soon, her mind began to grow fuzzy and her vision started to tunnel.

_No!_ She thought desperately. _No, not now! I have a future to look forward to now! I have someone to make that future with! I'm just starting my new life, damn it! I can't die now!_

Unit Thirteen seemed not to care about the cosmic act of injustice it was about to commit, because it just kept squeezing, smiling wickedly down at its enemy. It refused to be thrown off of its prey, despite the struggling of the purple EVA.

Misao eyes were just about to slip close and never open again, despite her will to continue to live, when Shinji woke. The Third Child's eyes opened slowly, then abruptly widened as he took in what was happening.

Wordlessly, he placed his hands over Misao's on the control yokes, adding the strength of his will to hers.

Evangelion Unit One's eyes flashed pure white, and it ripped Unit Thirteen's hands from its neck, then drove its armored knee into its torso. Unit Thirteen released an audible gasp of pain, and put up only the weakest resistance as Unit One shoved the harpy off itself.

Unit One got to its knees and raised its fist. The test type Evangelion's jaw restraints opened, and it released a mighty roar as it brought its fist down onto the core of the MP EVA.

This time it took only one blow from Unit One to destroy the core.

* * *

Dead silence reigned within the holographic meeting chamber of the SEELE council.

It was SEELE-09 who finally broke it. "The JSSDF is retreating from the Geofront and Tokyo-3," he said. "It appears that NERV has won the day."

"Any _other_ little tricks up your sleeve, Keel?" SEELE-06 spat venomously.

"No," SEELE-01 said, voice low. "It truly is over now. With my authority as chairman of this organization, I hereby disband SEELE. Go in peace, and good fortune to you all, gentlemen. I suspect you'll need it."

His monolith vanished, leaving the other members of SEELE staring dumbly at where it had been.

Then it sunk in that their leader had just declared that it was every man for himself, albeit in needlessly frilled tones, and the other members began to leave as well, their monoliths quickly winking out one by one.

Soon, all was silent in the chambers where the fate of mankind had once been decided in secret.

* * *

Author's Notes: First of all, sorry it took me so long to get this out. I ended up going to a bunch of parties and get togethers with family and friends after Christmas, which interfered with my writing a lot. Then I caught a cold. Go me.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed. I have to admit that parts of this were difficult to write, if only because there are only so many ways to skin an MP EVA. I know that at least a few of you were hoping for Gendo's end to be slower and more painful, but that just wasn't in the cards this time around. Besides, I think that for a master schemer like Gendo Ikari, getting _so_ close to the fulfillment of his plans and then being stopped by someone he probably never for a moment thought of as a threat has _got_ to hurt, perhaps more than anything else could. Never mind that Rei betrayed him at the last moment. And if that thought doesn't satisfy you, well, I've got something a bit more…vindictive planned for the Bastard King in my fic.

So, I should have the epilogue up pretty soon, and we'll see the final fates of everyone.

MadAngryBeaver, I believe it's actually a pretty well established fact in NGE that Asuka's mother's soul was in Unit Two. An Eva without a soul will not function, and the mother's of the pilots were deemed to be the best person to have in there, because of the mother-child bond and the instinct mothers have to protect their children. That's why Rei was never in contention for the highest sync ratio; she had no mother, so whoever's soul was in Unit Zero, it wasn't her mom.

SgtBash, wow, thank you for such high praise.

As always, thanks to all my readers and reviewers.

Now, I present to you, the epic conclusions to omake Shinji's saga.

* * *

Omakes!

Clash of the Schemers

Lilith's chamber was quiet as Shinji and Gendo leveled their guns at one another, ready to decide the fate of the entire world.

"I can't let you bring about Third Impact, Father," Shinji spoke. "It would be the end for _my_ scenario."

Gendo sneered. "Your scenario is just assembling a massive harem of beautiful women, without any of them realizing that you're actively seeking a harem."

"You say that like it's not a worthy ambition," Shinji said, frowning.

"That's because it isn't!" Gendo exclaimed.

"Considering that you're trying to bring about the end of the world so you can be with just _one_ woman, do you really think it's your place to judge that?" Shinji scowled.

"Shut up!" Gendo snapped. "You know nothing of Yui! I _will_ be with her again!"

"Uh huh," was Shinji's unimpressed reply. "Hey, have you ever bothered to wonder if Mother would even _want_ you back? Not only have you done some terrible things since you last saw her, but Ritsuko-chan has told me you're utterly _pathetic_ in bed."

"What?!" Gendo exclaimed, waving his gun about angrily. "That's not—!"

_**Bang!**_

Gendo must have accidentally pulled on the trigger in his anger, because his gun fired. Fortunately it hadn't been pointed anywhere near Shinji.

"Heh, went off too early," Shinji commented. "Ritsuko-chan did say you had that problem…"

"Silence!" Gendo roared, though color had begun to creep into his normally impassive face.

"No, seriously, after Ritsuko and I did it for the first time, she said that I'd brought her more pleasure in that one night than you did in the whole of your relationship with her," Shinji continued.

"Sh-Shut up," Gendo growled, but it was obvious that he was really starting to feel the effects of having a sledgehammer taken to his pride.

"_And_ I was with both her and Misao that night, so really, Ritsuko only got about half my attention," Shinji added.

Humiliated beyond measure, Gendo bowed his head, and—

_**Bang!**_

—Shinji promptly shot him, taking advantage in the brief moment of his father not looking at him.

Smirking, the Third Child went to his father's helpless, dying form. "First of all," he said, "_never_ take your eyes off of someone who's pointing a gun at you. And secondly, I have never asked Ritsuko about how you are in bed, nor has she ever told me. And if she tried to tell me, I'd stop her. That would just be _way _too much information, Dad."

* * *

Clash of the Schemers (take two)

Lilith's chamber was quiet as Shinji and Gendo leveled their guns at one another, ready to decide the fate of the entire world.

"I can't let you bring about Third Impact, Father," Shinji spoke. "It would be the end for _my_ scenario."

Gendo sneered. "Your scenario is just assembling a massive harem of beautiful women, without any of them realizing that you're actively seeking a harem."

"You say that like it's not a worthy ambition," Shinji said, frowning.

"That's because it isn't!" Gendo exclaimed.

"Considering that you're trying to bring about the end of the world so you can be with just _one_ woman, do you really think it's your place to judge that?" Shinji scowled.

"Shut up!" Gendo snapped. "You know nothing of Yui! I _will_ be with her again!"

"Look," Shinji said, taking a calming breath, "why don't we let Mother decide this issue?"

"What?"

Suddenly one of the walls of the chamber exploded and Unit One stormed in. The purple giant quickly reached down and grabbed Gendo in its fist, bringing the man eye level with the EVA. The restraints holding Unit One's jaw shut snapped.

Gendo gulped. He'd always rather suspected he'd die like this…

"GENDO!" Unit One roared in Yui's voice. "YOU ARE _NOT_ GOING TO END THE WORLD JUST WHEN MY SON IS POISED TO GIVE ME A WHOLE PACK OF GRANDCHILDREN! IS THAT CLEAR?!"

"Y-Yes, Yui-chan," Gendo stammered.

Unit One put the bearded man down on the ground with surprising gentleness, but Gendo fainted dead away the moment Yui released him.

"Thanks, Mom!" Shinji called up. "You're the best!"

"You're welcome, dear!" Yui replied kindly. "But remember, I _do_ expect lots of grandchildren from you!"

"Don't worry, Mom!" Shinji replied, his grin becoming somewhat perverted. "I intend to get _right_ on that!"

* * *

Clash of the Schemers (take three)

Lilith's chamber was quiet as Shinji and Gendo leveled their guns at one another, ready to decide the fate of the entire world.

"I can't let you bring about Third Impact, Father," Shinji spoke. "It would be the end for _my_ scenario."

Gendo sneered. "Your scenario is just assembling a massive harem of beautiful women, while keeping any of them from realizing that you're actively seeking a harem."

"You say that like it's not a worthy ambition," Shinji said, frowning.

"That's because it isn't!" Gendo exclaimed.

"Considering that you're trying to bring about the end of the world so you can be with just _one_ woman, do you really think it's your place to judge that?" Shinji scowled.

"Shut up!" Gendo snapped. "You know nothing of Yui! I—argh!"

Gendo screamed in pain and looked down to see a penguin stabbing him in the shin with a steak knife. And, strangely, the Mission Impossible theme appeared to be coming from somewhere nearby.

"Stupid bird! I'll—"

_**Bang!**_

Gendo collapsed to the floor, dead instantly from the gunshot wound Shinji had seen fit to give his father while the man was focused on Pen-Pen.

"Excellent work, Agent P!" Shinji said.

"Wark!"

"Don't worry, I already placed the order to have a bunch of young, female penguins shipped to Japan," Shinji assured his ally. "You may want to consider getting a bigger refrigerator."

"Wark!"

* * *

Clash of the Schemers (take four)

Lilith's chamber was quiet as Shinji and Gendo leveled their guns at one another, ready to decide the fate of the entire world.

"I can't let you bring about Third Impact, Father," Shinji spoke. "It would be the end for _my_ scenario."

Gendo sneered. "Your scenario is just assembling a massive harem of beautiful women, without any of them realizing that you're actively seeking a harem."

"You say that like it's not a worthy ambition," Shinji said, frowning.

"That's because it isn't!" Gendo exclaimed.

"Considering that you're trying to bring about the end of the world so you can be with just _one_ woman, do you really think it's your place to judge that?" Shinji scowled.

"Shut up!" Gendo snapped. "You know nothing of Yui! I _will_ be with her again!"

"No, I'm afraid you won't be," Shinji said. He then raised his voice and called, "Girls! There's no reasoning with him! He's all yours!"

Immediately, _all_ the Superwomen of Eva emerged from the shadows, looking ready to utterly tear Gendo apart. The Bastard King's eyes looked ready to pop out of their sockets.

"What the hell?!" the man exclaimed. "This isn't a Superwomen of Eva story! They don't exist here!"

"My animal magnetism knows no boundaries! Including dimensional barriers!" Shinji exclaimed, somehow not exploding from the sheer OOCness of that boast. "Get 'em, ladies!"

"Noooo!" Gendo screamed as the super powered heroines converged on him.


	22. Epilogue

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is the creation of Anno and Gainax. I don't own it, make no claims to it, and am making no profit from the fan fiction. No infringement of copyright is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

* * *

Epilogue: **Settling Accounts/The True Adventure**

"Now boarding: flight 23 from Tokyo-2 to Beijing. Flight 23 from Tokyo-2 to Beijing, now boarding."

Asuka sighed, getting to her feet and picking up here carry on bag. "Well, I guess this is it," she said. "The first leg of my trip back to Germany."

"Yeah," Misao said, while Shinji nodded.

There was a moment of awkward silence as the other passengers in the terminal began to board the plane. Only at the best of times could the two of them called Asuka a friend, and ever since the final battle of Tokyo-3, they hadn't quite been sure what to expect from the redhead. She'd been much more mellow in general but had reacted violently to the suggestion that the EVA's might be dismantled, not calming down entirely until she discovered that the UN only intended to put NERV's EVA Units into indefinite cryo-freeze "in preparation for any future threats of similar magnitude as the Angels."

Yet neither Shinji nor Misao could deny that a bond had formed with the Second Child, thanks to being comrades in arms with her in such a crazy war. A war that they were realizing was even crazier than they'd originally believed as Gendo's and SEELE's private files began to see the light of day.

"Look," Asuka sighed, "I know I gave you both a lot of crap you didn't deserve. I…I'm sorry. Tell Ayanami I'm sorry, too, if she wakes up."

Misao nodded and hugged the redhead. "What will you do now?" she asked.

"Pursue my doctorate, I guess," Asuka answered. "I'll find some excuse to come visit some time. I might not be heading back to Germany at all, if my parents weren't shrieking at me to come back." She added, rolling her eyes.

Misao released her hold on Asuka. "Well, you'd better go if you don't want to miss your plane," she said.

Asuka nodded. "Well, bye, you two. Good luck."

With that, the redhead turned and slipped into the throng of passengers, disappearing a moment later.

"Well," Shinji said to Misao, "I guess that's that."

He offered his arm to Misao, which she took, and they began to make their way out of the Tokyo-2 airport, silent.

Both of them were only too eager to close the current chapter in their lives and become more-or-less normal teenagers. The UN had, in return for vows of silence on how close the world had come to ending, agreed to provide each of them with a _very_ healthy pension for the rest of their lives. They had gotten themselves legally emancipated by the courts, again with the aid of their new "friends" in high places, so they didn't need to worry about having a guardian any longer. They had even found a nice apartment in Tokyo-2, moved into it, and gotten Pen-Pen back from the Horaki family. So there was nothing holding them back from continuing onto the next phase of their lives together.

Nothing, save for a blue haired girl who had been unconscious for the three weeks since the invasion of NERV had been turned back.

The couple boarded a waiting NERV car and asked the driver to take them to Tokyo-2 Memorial Hospital.

* * *

Ever since the JSSDF had attacked, NERV had been in chaos, and the withdrawal of the invaders hadn't seen a decrease in the disorder. If anything, things had only gotten worse in the immediate aftermath.

Fortunately, NERV's new commander, promoted to that rank only a few days ago by the Secruity Council, had been a veritable bastion of calm leadership in the tumultuous days that had followed the invasion.

Of course, even the most glorious of leaders can grow weary, and Commander Maya Ibuki proved she was no exception as she allowed herself to slump in her new chair in the command center.

"Status report," she ordered.

"The repairs to Unit Two have been completed, and cryo-freezing is scheduled to commence within the hour," Aoba said.

"The removal of the bakelite from the corridors is on schedule," Makoto said. "They're finding a lot more bodies encased in there than they expected, though."

Maya's face twisted into a grimace. "Tell them to keep at it and to try and avoid damaging the bodies as much as possible," she said. "I'd like to be able to send them to their families more or less intact."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Dr. Akagi has reported that the UN inspectors are finished with her and Tech Division One for day and have all left the base," Sakura added.

Maya arched an eyebrow. "I see," she said, getting up from her chair. "Hyuga, you have the bridge."

"Yes, ma'am," Makoto said, even as a smirking Aoba began to elbow him playfully, until a glare from Sakura stopped him.

Maya wordlessly got onto a personal lift that took her away from the command center, and was soon making her way to Ritsuko's office.

The blond scientist hadn't allowed her to speak her piece, even when they'd been stuck inside the EVA cage after Unit Zero and Rei had departed for battle. Ritsuko had focused on using the computers inside to try and follow the course of the JSSDF and impede them, to the exclusion of all else, even though she must have known she wouldn't be able to do much.

After they'd finally been released from the EVA cage, there was more than enough for both of them to do to keep them away from each other. Still, Maya couldn't help but feel snubbed, and she intended to find out what her former mentor thought of her, now that she had a few spare moments.

She was soon standing outside the door to Ritsuko's office and felt her courage starting to erode. Taking a deep breath, Maya knocked on the door before her determination could abandon her entirely.

"Come in."

Maya slid open the door and entered. "Hello, Ritsuko," she said nervously, shutting the door behind her.

The bottle blonde looked up from whatever document she was reading, saw who it was, and quickly stood up. "Hello, Commander," she said with a teasing, if slightly brittle smile.

Maya groaned. "Didn't we discuss this the last time I got a promotion?" she asked, going along with the joke because she wasn't entirely sure what else to do.

It was strange, feeling so awkward around Ritsuko.

"True, but I couldn't resist," Ritsuko said. "Honestly, I'm kind of surprised that you took the job. I was half expecting you to bolt from NERV now that the war's over."

Maya shrugged. "With Fuyutski gone, who else was there to take the job?" she asked.

The Vice Commander had bolted almost immediately after the invasion was thwarted and was now god-knew-where. He was a wanted man, but Maya doubted that anyone would go very far out of their way to find one old man who had more or less been dragged into the schemes for Instrumentality by Gendo. Especially not when the twelve members of SEELE were still at large.

"Besides, I didn't want to leave everyone at the mercy of whoever the government decided to appoint to the position," Maya continued. "And anyway, once things really settle down, it should be a pretty sedate post, now that the war's over."

"I guess you're right," Ritsuko said.

An uncomfortable silence fell.

"Ritsuko-chan," Maya blurted out, "there's still something I need to tell you."

Ritsuko smiled bitterly and looked down, unable to meet Maya's eyes. "I'm surprised you still want to tell me that, after everything you've learned about me," she said. "Everything I've been a party to…I'd be rotting in jail right now, if I hadn't handed over all the information I have on Instrumentality and SEELE to the UN in exchange for my freedom, and rightfully so."

"Ritsuko-chan," Maya said, "I don't care that you did all that, because in the end, you were willing to do whatever it took to make things right. I don't think that makes you a bad person. I think that makes you a good person who just made some bad mistakes. I…I still love you."

Ritsuko was quiet for a long time, a near eternity from Maya's perspective. Finally, she looked up, her green eyes looking rather liquid.

"Maya…" she said slowly. "I never really thought about pursuing a relationship like that…with a woman, I mean."

The petite brunette felt her heart sinking. Maya had always known that the possibility existed that Ritsuko only liked men, but it was shockingly painful to find her deepest desires thwarted by something that seemed, to her, to be so small a concern.

"I…I see," Maya said, suddenly on the verge of tears but not wanting Ritsuko to see how upset she was. She looked away. "In that case, I guess you should probably try and forget I ever…"

She trailed off when Ritsuko gently cupped her cheek and turned her head so Maya was looking her in the eyes.

"I never thought about pursuing a romantic relationship with a woman," Ritsuko said. "But the idea doesn't repulse me, either. And I think if anybody deserves a chance, it's you. Nobody else has ever cared about me as much as you have, that's for sure."

Maya smiled brilliantly at her former mentor. "So," she said, "how about a date, then? Say dinner and a drink this Friday?"

Ritsuko smiled back. "I think that would be a good start," she said. "I only wish I could give you more. You certainly deserve it."

"It's all right," Maya said. "I'm glad you were honest with me."

Then, feeling unusually bold, Maya quickly went up on her tiptoes, gave the blonde a quick peck on the lips, and then quickly departed.

"Until Friday," she said, already halfway out the door.

Ritsuko slowly sat down in her office chair, feeling rather stunned.

It wasn't until several moments had gone by that she realized she was blushing and had a rather silly grin plastered on her face.

* * *

The voices were the first thing that she became aware of.

Not that she recognized them as voice at first. In the beginning, they were just formless, incoherent blobs of sound that came and went randomly from the complete blackness that was her universe.

Slowly, however, the sounds began to become recognizable as words to her, and the words gradually came together to form sentences.

She couldn't identify the people who spoke near her, but from what they said, it seemed like they wanted her to awaken.

This confused her. The time for her to fulfill her purpose had come and gone, and she had failed to do so. There was nothing left for her in the world of the living. Why would anyone want her?

It was another week before she realized that the voices that came and went were those of her friends, and she remembered that there might still be something for her in the waking world.

* * *

"Ohayo, Rei," Shinji greeted as he and Misao walked into Ayanami's hospital room.

Rei, as usual, didn't respond.

It had been almost a month now since Third Impact had been averted, and there had been no change in Rei's condition. Shinji and Misao were starting to discuss the possibility that they'd have to stop holding a vigil over their friend and move on with their lives soon.

They were both loathe to do that, feeling like it would be abandoning Rei, who had saved them on that terrible day. However, they knew that they couldn't put their lives on hold forever.

"Things are actually more or less normal by now," Misao said to Rei, as she and Shinji sat down in chairs next to the First Child's bed. "The attack on the Geofront and the aftermath of it aren't the only things you see when you turn on the news. We've even heard that people are starting to move back to Tokyo-3."

"Yeah," Shinji added. "The government doesn't want to go to the expense of building a new base to store the Evangelions, and Lilith, I guess. And having such a big military base is bringing people back to the city. It'll probably never be like it was before, though, and we have no plans to go back."

"Oh, and they caught the French member of the Human Instrumentality Committee yesterday," Misao said. "They caught him in Paris, trying to board a plane to Buenos Aires-Dos."

"That is good to hear," Rei replied, her voice a croak.

Shinji and Misao were dead silent for a moment, then suddenly both exclaimed, "Rei!" and leapt to their feet, smiling down at the First Child.

"You're awake!" Misao said jubilantly.

"How do you feel?" Shinji asked.

"Weak," Rei answered, "but otherwise fine. What happened to me?"

"You had a seizure in the middle of the battle," Misao answered. "After it was over, me and Shinji got your entry plug out of your EVA and ran all the way to the edge of Tokyo-2 in Unit One. Then we got you to this hospital."

"For a while, the doctors said it looked like we were going to lose you," Shinji said, picking up the tale. "Then we were finally able to get in touch with Dr. Akagi, and she came and looked you over herself. Your S2 organ reacted badly to the drug my father gave you. Akagi-san said it was on the verge of rupturing by the time she got here. She had to remove it to save you."

Rei's eyes widened slightly at this news. "I see. So…"

"You're effectively human now," Misao said with a smile.

Rei leaned back on her pillows as she contemplated this. It wouldn't change her life very much, since she had so rarely used her Angelic abilities anyway. All the same, it seemed very strange to her, to view herself as entirely human.

"I…thank you, for visiting with me while I recovered," Rei said. "Tell me, did my apartment building survive the attack on Tokyo-3?"

Shinji and Misao exchanged a puzzled glance.

"No, Rei, it didn't," Shinji said.

"I see," Rei said, expertly hiding the dismay she felt at this information.

With Gendo dead, Rei felt very alone in the world. The man had guided her entire life and been the only parental figure she'd ever known, even if he'd done and been as much for less than altruistic reasons. She didn't have a single yen to her name, had no idea what to do with her newfound freedom, and now she had no home, as well.

_Perhaps I should have remained unconscious,_ she thought.

"Do you believe that NERV will allow me to stay in the barracks?" Rei asked in a small voice.

Her friends gaped at her for a second.

"Are you nuts, Rei?" Misao asked. "We're not going to let you live down in the Geofront! You're going to live with us! Shin-chan and me made sure to get an apartment with a second bedroom just so we'd have room for you."

Rei blinked. "I'm going to live with you?"

Shinji nodded. "We could never just leave you to fend for yourself, especially not after we found out how my father treated you. Besides, apparently we're sort of related. I can't just abandon my only living family."

Shinji and Misao traded a look that was both amused and rueful, knowing that even with Asuka back in Germany, they _still_ weren't going to get an apartment with just the two of them. But that was okay. They'd much rather see Rei happy and provided for than have the increased privacy they'd been craving.

Rei didn't notice this, however, because her vision was starting to become strangely blurry. "Arigato," she said, finding her voice thick. She had the most curious sensation in her throat, as though some kind of lump had formed in it.

_My god, is Rei Ayanami actually getting choked up?_ Misao thought, scarcely able to believe her eyes.

Shinji smiled. "Well, I'm going to get the doctor. Hopefully, Rei can check out soon. Then we'll have to find a good sushi place."

"Sushi?" Rei asked, clearly confused.

"Rei, we won the whole damn war," Shinji said, looking amused. "We _have_ to go out and celebrate this one!"

* * *

**Somewhere in Germany…**

Colonel von Elsing stared darkly at the great, imposing structure which stood in the distance. How Keel had managed to build such a fortress in secret and then hack into the various satellites which looked down upon this part of the world so they wouldn't show it baffled him. Just transporting all the necessary materials to this middle of nowhere location should have garnered ample attention, but somehow it hadn't.

Then again, Keel and his partners in crime had done far more staggering things, so perhaps he shouldn't be surprised. Still, it annoyed him that someone could so deftly hide from the German military and government within the borders of the fatherland itself. If not for the man in Keel's employ who'd decided he wanted to claim the bounty on the cyborg's head, they still might have no idea where the crazy bastard was.

"Sir."

The colonel looked away from the fortress, seeing that the small team of men he'd sent out on a reconnaissance mission to scout the place had returned.

"Glad to see you back," von Elsing said. "Your report?"

The squad leader stepped forward. "Sir, the place is insanely well defended. There's a small army of mercs armed with automatic weapons, electric fences, pill boxes, and even AA and anti-tank guns."

The colonel nodded. "I see. Thank you, gentlemen, you're dismissed."

The men saluted and then departed. Colonel von Elsing left his command tent, off in search of the technical wizard that had accompanied his small but potent force. It wasn't long before he found the man, looking over one of the Jeeps they'd come in.

"Lieutenant Kappel," von Elsing spoke.

The man leapt to attention immediately upon hearing his CO's voice. "Sir!"

"At ease," von Elsing said. "I have been advised that Keel's stronghold is extremely well defended. Therefore, I intend to employ the Pinch."

"Sir?" Kappel said, surprised.

The Pinch was a new addition to the German military's arsenal. It was a device capable of releasing the kind of electromagnetic pulse that resulted from air detonating an atomic bomb, without creating the nuclear explosion. The EMP played merry hell with electronics, but it was perfectly harmless to humans.

Cyborgs, on the other hand…

"Keel's forces are armed to the teeth, Lieutenant," von Elsing said. "I am _not_ going to let my men die just so we can take that bastard in alive. Do I make myself clear?"

"As crystal, sir," Kappel said at once. "I can have the Pinch ready in about an hour."

"Make it so, then," von Elsing commanded.

That day, Keel Lorenz, former chairman of the Human Instrumentality Committee and the leader of the secret organization SEELE, died a very inglorious death, and the world was much better off for it.

* * *

**Ten years later**

**Tokyo-2 Municipal Junior High School**

"All right, class, now for homework, I want you all to read over chapter three of your texts and do the questions at the end of the chapter," the Sensei said. "Other than that, enjoy the weekend! And somebody _please_ do something to feed the rumor mill! It's been getting too dull around here!"

The class either pledged to do the homework or laughed at the joke. Or at least, the male half of the class did. The female half just sort of rolled their eyes at usual display of excessive enthusiasm from the boys. Honestly, so far as the girls were concerned, the only thing more pathetic was the way the boys actually seemed to believe the wild rumors that Sensei had piloted an EVA during the Angel Wars.

The students gathered their things and filed out of the classroom, then left the school building. Not long afterwards, their Sensei also strode out into the schoolyard.

"Bye, Misao-sama!" the male students who were still around chorused, invoking another round of eye rolling from their female counterparts.

Really, it was rather hard to fault the group of teenage boys for their adoration. Misao was the spitting image of her "cousin" at this age, except that she was slightly more trim and fit because her diet didn't consist of beer and instant foods (said cousin had, according to official records, died in a tragic freak accident just before the Chinese branch of NERV had been shut down).

"Bye, guys!" Misao responded cheerfully, just before she climbed into her Renault Alpine and drove off with a roar of the engine.

After a brief (but very fast paced) drive, the young school teacher was pulling into the driveway of her home.

"I'm home!" she called as she walked in.

No answer came. Misao frowned slightly, then gave a mental shrug and sat down at the kitchen table to grade papers. It wasn't long before she heard the door opening again.

"I'm home!" Shinji called.

Misao got up and left the kitchen to greet him. "Welcome home, anata," she said, then her grin turned sly and she put her hands on her hips. "So, where have you been?"

He smiled playfully back at her. "Oh, I was out picking up a girl. I was thinking she could stay here."

He gestured down to a cute girl of no more than three years who stood next to him. She had long purple hair and dark blue eyes.

Misao squatted down and appraised the little girl with a critical eye. "Hmm…well, I guess it's okay," she said at last. "She doesn't look like she eats much."

The little girl giggled. "You're silly, Mommy!"

Laughing, Misao stood back up to her full height, picking up her daughter as she did so and hugging her. "Of course I am!" she said. "Where do you think you get it from, Miko-chan?"

Miko just laughed in response, and Misao felt her grin widening. "Go play with Daddy for a little while," she said, setting her down. "I have papers to grade."

"Okay," Miko said cheerfully. "Daddy said he'd let me help him cook dinner tonight!"

"Really? Well, be careful, you two," Misao said, silently wondering if Miko had inherited her husband's culinary skills or her own total lack of them.

"We will be," Shinji vowed, taking Miko's hand and leading her off.

A few hours later, the small family sat down to a dinner which had _not_ been destroyed by the participation of the little girl in the cooking process. Not that Shinji had let her do much besides stir the miso, of course, but Misao still felt it was quite the accomplishment, if only because she was sure that she would have found a way to botch the job at three years old.

"Asuka called earlier today," Shinji said as they ate. "She's coming to Japan for some symposium or something in a couple of weeks, and she was wondering if we could get the old gang together for a night while she's here."

Misao smiled. "It sounds like fun. I'll make some calls tomorrow and see who can make it."

"Can I stay with Aunt Rei when you go out?" Miko asked eagerly.

"Rei's probably going to come with us when we go," Misao said. "So will Toji and Hikari."

"Oh," Miko said, clearly disappointed. "Well, please, could you find someone _besides_ the cat lady to baby sit me?"

The "cat lady" actually wasn't Ritsuko, but an elderly neighbor of theirs who owned enough felines to put the scientist to shame. Miko said that staying with her was incredibly boring, and neither Shinji nor Misao found that very difficult to believe.

"We'll do what we can," Shinji promised, and Miko nodded, not entirely satisfied but knowing this was the best she would get.

"So how was preschool today, Miko-chan?" Misao asked, changing the subject.

"Today, Natsumi said that her little baby sister Aki was born last night!" Miko exclaimed in a great rush, with the air of someone who had been waiting for far too long to share her news. "Natsumi said that Aki's really, really tiny and really, really cute! And now I want a little baby sister, too!"

"Do you really?" Misao asked with a smile, to which Miko nodded vigorously.

Misao turned to her husband and gave him a rather naughty smile, a very distinct glint in her eyes. Shinji felt his heartbeat begin to accelerate and silently marveled that Misao could so effortlessly have this effect on him, even after spending a decade together and having a child.

"I'll tell you what, Miko-chan," Misao said, not taking her gaze off of Shinji. "We'll see what we can do."

"Yay!" Miko cheered.

Shinji just smiled back at Misao and wondered, as he had many, many times over the course of the previous ten years, just how he'd gotten so lucky.

* * *

Author's Notes: And so, we finally have reached the end of Altered Destinies. There's not much to say about this epilogue, as it's really just handing out rewards and punishments to our heroes and remaining villains. All the same, I hope you enjoyed it.

Reader Kai, the idea to have Rei kick so much ass in the final battle was really something I came up with pretty recently, which is why I said I didn't have too much planned for her. As for the concoction Gendo used on her, it was really just meant to be some side project of NERV's the was abandoned when the Angels came back. I like to imagine NERV might have had a lot of such projects that were shelved when the war started, and Gendo would have all kinds of motives for wanting to be able to super charge Rei for a little while.

MadAngryBeaver, I think Anno or Gainax or somebody involved with Eva once explained that Unit Two got a piece of Kyoko's soul when she did the sync test that caused her to go insane. It was the piece that recognized Asuka as her daughter, which was why she did the whole thing with the doll. After Kyoko died, the remaining parts of her soul supposedly were drawn to the piece in Unit Two and they reassembled themselves…or something.

RI100014, heh, I never knew that the whole swallowing one's tongue during the seizure was just a myth.

As always, thanks to my readers and reviewers.

* * *

Omake

HLA!

She trailed off when Ritsuko gently cupped her cheek and turned her head so Maya was looking her in the eyes.

"I never thought about pursuing a romantic relationship with a woman," Ritsuko said. "But the idea doesn't repulse me, either. And I think if anybody deserves a chance, it's you. Nobody else has ever cared about me as much as you have, that's for sure."

Maya smiled brilliantly at her former mentor.

"Hot lesbian action! Awesome!"

Both Ritsuko and Maya jumped a foot at the sound of the voice and looked around wildly, wondering who the hell had said that.

At first they didn't see anything, then they spotted a spot of milky white light that was forming in the middle of the room. Terrified, the two women backed away, but then stood frozen as the light slowly began to take a humanoid shape. In seconds, the light went from a blob to being easily recognizable as—

"Kaji?!" Ritsuko exclaimed.

"Yes, it's me," Kaji's ghost said. "And, well, being dead sucks, so I was really hoping to be able to watch you two go at it."

Ritsuko blushed. "I think it'll be a while before we're ready to do that," she said, then added in a more forceful tone, "and we certainly won't let you watch!"

"Aw, come on!" Kaji whined. "I totally got the shaft this fic! I still got shot, but I didn't get to sleep with Misato! That's worse than in canon!"

"I don't care," Ritsuko said. "You're _not_ watching us have sex!"

"If you don't let me watch you, then I'll haunt you both!" Kaji threatened.

Ritsuko's eyes narrowed. "Maya-chan, call an exorcist, please."

"Right away, Ritsuko-chan," Maya said, heading for the phone.

"Hey, come on! There's no need for that! All I wanted to do is watch a little hot lesbian sex!" Kaji said. "How can you deny me that?!"

Ritsuko turned to Maya. "Tell them we'll need an old priest and a young priest."

Maya nodded.

"Aw," Kaji pouted, "you two suck."


End file.
